No sooner was Dearing awakened by the tremor than the latter stopped immediately.

Remaining on the couch, she waited a few moments and reassured that the building had withstood the aftershock, she tried to relax in order to go back to sleep but she suddenly heard like claws scrape on wood and froze: There was an animal in her office.

Avoiding making movements too brisk in order to not catch the latter's attention, she slowly stretched her arm out and grabbed her little flashlight.

She turned it on within the palm of her hand and turned the beam towards the desk while holding her breath.

On the margins of the lighted area, she saw the animal and any feeling of fear left her.
She was frozen out of astonishment however since the bird that entered in her office was not the most common.

It was a bird of prey, some kind of vulture, but it wasn't as ugly as the Turkey Vultures.
Its head, that had shades of red, yellow, purple and grey, was wrinkled and folded. A caruncle adorned the base of its red beak, and a grey-black collar circled its bare neck while the back and the upper part of its wings were white, just like the underside.
Its noble appearance reminded Dearing that of a wise old man.
She knew that it was a sacred animal for the Tun-Si and has been on Isla Nublar for millennia.
Seeking shelter, it must had entered in the building through some breach in its western end.

Wondering about what to do with it, Dearing wanted to get up and leave the room to tell someone about the vulture's presence but a raspy voice, that of an elderly woman, called out to her in Spanish:

"Don't make any abrupt movement, Mrs. Don't be afraid."

Dearing turned her head towards the doorway and saw one of the cleaning ladies.

"A King Vulture, Sibù's messenger," she said.

The cleaning lady stepped in the office, a candle in one hand and a packet wrapped in paper in the other.

She put the candle on the top of the nearest piece of furniture and undid the paper, revealing a few small pieces of meat that it wrapped.

She then advanced towards the vulture, slowly and without making any brisk movements, and to Dearing's amazement, it didn't moved away.

She put the packet on the desk, delicately, almost with reverence, and stepped back.

The vulture looked at the offering for a second, walked to it and lowered its neck to start pecking at the pieces of meat.

The bird being now occupied, the cleaning lady came to join Dearing by the couches.

"What are you still doing here?" Asked the ex-director in Spanish in a low voice. "Why didn't you joined the other evacuees?"

"Evacuate? What's the point? Have you seen my age?" The cleaning lady pointed out before laughing softly. "And do what after that?" She added. "Continue to live in precariousness like I did during so many years? I don't have any children and all the people I cared about are no longer of this world."

She turned to the balcony's French window.

"I already said goodbye to this island once. There won't be a second. Don't try to persuade me to take the ship, I've made my decision. Don't worry, I can handle myself."

Realizing that the cleaning lady was a Tun-Si, Dearing understood her decision and was touched by her courage.
She therefore insisted on respecting the rules of hospitality and ensuring that the last human contact of the elderly lady leaves a good memory to her.

She showed her the closest chair to her.

"Please, have a sit."

"Thank you."

She then wanted to go get some glasses and drinks but as she had to get closer to the vulture to do so, she hesitated.

"Don't be afraid," the cleaning lady said, "he knows he is just a guest, and he will respect his host. But respect him in return. Do not touch him, it would be a sacrilegious act. Sibù is already quite angry."

While the vulture continued to eat, Dearing slowly skirted her desk and gently opened one of the drawers in order to take out two glasses and a bottle before returning to her guest, who had put her candle on the coffee table and settled down in the armchair that had its back facing the desk.

"I have nothing to offer but rum," she told her.

"I would gladly have some, please."

She poured rum into the two glasses and handed one of them to the cleaning lady who thanked her.

Taking her drink, Dearing sat down again on the couch and saw that the vulture, which had finished eating, had moved away from the paper and remained perched on the edge of the desk with its wings folded against its body and its head turned towards the two women.

"Enough about me," the cleaning lady said as she leaned back in her chair before sipping her drink. "Let's talk about you."

"What do you want to know?"

"What are your plans for the future? You will leave the island I guess. Nothing keeps you here."

"Technically it's true but to be frank, despite the situation, I'm not eager to return to the mainland."

The cleaning lady nodded understandingly and a serious look appeared on her face.

"I still remember very clearly the day I left this island, the one where those mercenaries came to expel us. To be forcibly exiled from one's homeland is something I don't hope for anyone. The aftermath was very difficult too. Being thrown in the unknown, no longer see your friends, lose sight of the people you love... One must hang on. Hang on is the key, even if a tidal wave is about to crash upon you. Through the hardships you have experienced, you have discovered within yourself unsuspected qualities. Searching your nephews in the jungle while a great danger lurked there and taking the risk of compromising your job? It must have required a lot of courage and a great sense of self-sacrifice."

Dearing looked at her in astonishment.

"How do you know all that?"

"Let's say that people don't usually pay attention to me." She answered simply, hinting that several times, sensitive topics had been discussed within her earshot since many believed she didn't understood English. "Do not let anyone misjudge you. All that is gold doesn't glitter. Tell me, where are you from?"

"From Wisconsin, near the Great Lakes."

The cleaning lady squinted and crossed her thin, gaunt fingers. Dearing thought that either she did not know where Wisconsin and the Great Lakes were, either that the answer she gave did not satisfied her entirely.

"And your ancestors who crossed the Atlantic, where were they from?"

"Excellent question. I am not sure, but my great-grandfather had undertaken a lot of genealogical research that led him to travel across Europe for many years, shortly after the end of the First World War. He had managed to trace the origins of our family back to the beginning of the Middle Ages and had discovered that some of our ancestors lived in Xanten, on the banks of the Rhine in Germany, and that their ancestors had settled there at the twilight of the Roman Empire. Others were from Götaland, in Scandinavia."

"The land of the Northmen. I had heard once of a legendary king who had lived in this area and who had saved his kingdom from one of those great serpents that you call dragons."

"Yes, Beowulf. I know his legend very well, having discovered it at the town library when I was a child. One of my favorite authors was even inspired by his tale for one of his fantasy stories. In one of them, the hero, like Beowulf, also dies shortly after slaying a dragon."

"Is this character as brave as this Beowulf was?"

"No. He is rather an anti-hero and he commits many misdeeds before his end, often against his will. Cursed by powers beyond him, his life is nothing but torment and although he survives his last confrontation with the dragon, he takes his own life by casting himself upon the point of his sword, overwhelmed by the weight of all his actions and by the fact that he only brought misfortune to his relatives and destroyed what he loved. He even triggered the fall of a kingdom because of his arrogance."

Hardly had she said those words that she became silent and lowered her eyes.

She paused for a moment and then grabbed her glass to drink down in one go its content before changing the subject.

Dearing and her guest continued talking for long minutes, but as the cleaning lady was singing a lullaby in her mother tongue, Dearing's eyelids became heavy and she surrendered to sleep again.

When she opened her eyes once again before going back to sleep right after, the light of the candle had vanished and the vulture and the cleaning lady had disappeared, without leaving any trace and the latter with the candle and her glass.
As Morpheus's arms brought her back into the limbo of sleep, she came to wonder if the visit had really happened.