The interior of the farmhouse, while not barren, was scarcely populated with furniture. Each placed in such a way as to guide the eye from one point to the other, focusing on all the important, pretty paintings and the like while drawing away from the numerous splotches of discolouration or fraying floorboards.

It was an old house, that much Noah had realized just from standing outside its two-storied structure, possibly three considering the sloped, triangular roof where an attic possibly lay in wait. There had certainly been a woman's hand to this place, one experienced in the way of hiding the ugly behind a facade of beauty.

The woman now before him though… she was the pure dilute of that very statement.

“I’m,” she sniffled, “sorry you had to see that.” Her hair was red as flames. She stepped close, her stride slows yet still trained and handed Noah a glass of water just as he finished wiping his face down with a wettened towel.

While it didn’t do much to rid him of the more deeply inset grime, it did enough to help him look less like a bum… when looked in the face, that is.

“It’s alright,” Noah softly smiled, thankfully taking the glass and downed half, feeling its coldness cool that parched burning he’d been suffering through during his near ten-minute trek from tree to house. The distances were longer than he thought it was. “It’s never good to hold in your tears.” That much he knew first hand.

The woman wiped her nose with the back of her hand and took the seat across from Noah. The dining room table was large, larger than any he’d sat at, but it was weathered. Not for artistic purposes, but like it had been through a hundred years of history. Scrapes and scars littered its surface though veneers and oils had been used in an attempt to hide them, to partial effect.

“If…” she sniggled, “if you don’t mind me asking. Why did you do that? I… you don’t even know me yet you comforted me so kindly.”

Noah tilted his head, thinking about it for the barest few seconds, “I don’t like seeing women cry.”

Her mouth hung slightly, tired eyes widening before letting out a deprecating snort, “I’m no woman.” She swirled her glass, causing the water inside to form a vortex, “I’m just an old hag about to lose the only thing she has left.”

Noah rose his brows, eyeing her up and down, not seeing what part of her could be accounted as a hag. If anything, he’d call her mature, and dare him, a milf—though the unironic usage made him inwardly cringe—she was plump and curvy with the barest love handles peaking through the thin, wine-soaked night garment she wore—Noah having to do his utmost to avoid ogling her nipples bared and visibly through the sheer fabric.

“Ma’am, you are far from a hag,” he inclined to her face of soft features and plump lips that gave her a very mature and dare he, attractive allure to her. “Trust me, I’ve run into enough to know what they look like. You are the furthest thing I’ve ever had the pleasure of laying my eyes on. You’re too pretty, you see.”

She gaped at him, this time much wider than before. It had been a long time since someone had called her pretty, and it came from a dirty boy of all people. And while she was caked in wine and tears and with her clothing still stuck uncomfortably close to her skin.

She wasn’t pretty. That’s just how she felt.

“Thank you for saying that,” she mumbled, “but you don’t need to lie to me. No one would find me attractive anymore. Not with a body like this,” she pinched her belly and looked down to her sagging chest. “I’m far too old for compliments like that.”

“Why would I lie?” really, he had no reason to. “I truly do see you as quite the beauty. Yes, maybe today’s just not your prettiest, but even then you have this mature charm to you and pardon my French, but I find that quite sexy. You’ve got this more… experienced…? Feeling to you than others. Given the choice, I’d go for you any day of the week.”

Once more, the woman looked utterly flabbergasted, albeit it didn’t last long before her paled skin grew beet red and steam practically burst from her head. “S-stop that,” stuttering, she raised her hands to cup her cheeks, “I’m not something that should be picked by anyone anymore. I’ve had my time.”

Compared to some of the younger girls he’d seen back home, she’d probably be stepping over them on a bad day like today and they’d get on their knees, prostrating before her as they parted like the red sea on a good day.

"I’ve had my time,” she lifted her glass of water, swirling it with this wistful look to her eyes, “done everything I’ve dreamed about and more. My time is up. Now I’ve just got to wait till I pass by the old crook road and join my husband on the other side.”

Noah frowned, “Is that what you really want? To just die?”

Liora lifted her eyes to him, the weakest smile he’d ever seen plastered on her face, “I’ve got nothing left. I have nothing. In a years time, I won’t even have a roof over my head. Not to mention I am far from my prime, and I’ve born a child on top of that. Even if I could strike upon a man willing to take me, I can offer him nothing but my body.”

The darkness in her eyes, it rung ominous to him. Like the calm before a storm, he couldn’t stop that sick twisting in his stomach.

“You still have time, don’t you?” He’d overheard little of the conversation with that haughty chocolate hued woman. Though much of the context was lost to him.

“I… It’s just too much. Five hundred thousand… It’s not something I can just earn in such a time. If ever. We barely made thirty thousand in a year let alone fifty, and most we use to pay for helping hands or repairs to the buildings. I doubt there’s even so much as five thousand left in my purse now.” Her hands trembled, face turning red and eyes glassy, “why did this have to happen? I did everything right, and yet I’m being punished like this? Is this my punishment for leaving?” the last part murmured so low Noah almost didn’t hear.

Noah certainly had issues of his own, for one this place he’d found himself in. The questions stacked up a minute after minute, like that woman, her ears, they were pointed, weren’t they? And those horses pulling her carriage, they had the bodies of humans, didn’t they? Centaurs?

Forcing his issues to the back of his mind, Noah hesitantly reached his hand towards the woman and laid it over the back of her flatly laid hand. The woman darted her head up, jerking her gaze to his dirty hand as it squeezed softly, “I might not know much of what you're going through. But I do know that it will get better. It just takes time.”

She pulled up from his hand and met earthy brown eyes and his gaunt and dirty face. Even a wet towel couldn’t clean him properly. “I don’t have time,” she crossed her hand over his, feeling with shock and realization just how boney he was. There was barely muscle let alone fat to any part of him.

“There’s always time,” he said, “one thing I’ve learned is that it's not how much time you have. It’s how you spend it. For example, do you know how much hay there is on the farm? Ready to be harvested that is?”

She looked at him, mouth agape and eyes wide, “I… I couldn’t possibly know. I-I, my husband would know that. But he’s…” no more needed to be said.

“Even roughly, no matter how much that it.”

Rolling her head her hazy eyes wandered about searching for any number, a memory of her husband or a time he’d muttered anything about numbers. “Five… uh… six… six thousand?”

“Kilos?”

She lifted her brow, “I think so?”

“Right.” Noah squeezed her hand a little tighter, bony finger caressing the back, “and how much would say, a kilo goes for?”

She gaped once more, “I don’t know. Maybe twelve… twenty buckles maybe? I don’t know. This is all something Harv would do. I just tend to the house.”

Noah nodded, his eyes tilted up and to the side as he did the calculations. Deciding to use a number between her predictions he found fifteen to be apt, “so that would be fifteen times six thousand is… uh, times a thousand would be… thousand… fifteen thousand, times that by six… nine… ninety thousand? Thereabouts.”

As his gaze lowered to the woman he saw her face morph through stages of shock and awe. “Did you just calculate that? In your head?”

“Er… yes?”

“That’s amazing.” Exclaiming that she eyed up his lanky body, shocked that a boy who could calculate such large numbers in the barest few moments would ever be so quaint. Many a place would vie for a boy who could count tens and hundreds, but thousands, that was a shock. Not unheard of, if given enough time she was sure she could do it herself but so swiftly, it was shocking.

“Is it?” Noah pulled his hand from hers and scratched his cheek, “I mean. It’s not really a difficult sum, is it? Just a whole bunch of ten times.”

“Perhaps,” she blanked on what he said, ten times what? “But still, to get ninety thousand from such a small number, it's surprising. Something valuable as well, not many without real training in arithmetic can even do it in their head without parchment or an abacus.”

He didn’t reply, not at first at least. Those things, no one called paper parchment or used an abacus nowadays. He glanced out the window over the woman's shoulder, seeing a sapphire sky beyond and gulped. ‘This is a whole new world, isn’t it? Suppose the elf and centaur should have been a dead giveaway.’

“Really?” he forced a grateful smile, “I mean. It’s just how I learned it.”

She nodded, a realization seemingly coming to her mind made her jolt upright and made her eyes blare open. “Oh my, I can’t believe I forgot to ask your name.”

“Oh, Noah, Arcturus.” Part of him was tempted to mutter his usual follow up of it, his surname, coming from a star in a constellation, but refrained as he realized this world may not have the same constellations.

“Arcturus,” she repeated fondly, “it’s a pretty name.” He thanked her. The woman crossed one hand over her bountiful bust logged still with the stickiness of wine, though much was starting to dry by this point. Following her hand, Noah quickly averted when he peered her nipple through the gown. Bowing her head she said, “Liora Rostrea. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Noah.”

“Same, ms Rostrea.” Replying kindly, Noah was tempted to return to their conversation of hay but relented as it had shifted so quickly and thoroughly it just seemed odd to bring it back up.

Liora wandered over his dirty form, frowning at the dirt and grown and glowering at the tears and holes. “You are quite the mess,” she said. Noah looked down his body, cringing as he saw a hole in his britches ominously close to revealing a certain rod.

“I’ve had a hard few weeks.” He smiled and said.

“That is quite the understatement. You look like you’ve lived in those for years, let alone weeks.”

That could very well be the case. He hadn’t the faintest whether this body looked like him or if he had simply highjacked a corpse when coming to… whatever this planet was.

Liora set her hands on the table and pushed herself up. Unable to help himself, he relished the ample wave that coursed through her bosom. “Come, I’ll put on a bath and see if there’s anything for you to change into. You look about the same size as my husband… if a little lanky.”

“Oh you don’t need to do that ma’am,” he tried to retort but went silent as she turned, fire in her eyes. “Thank you, ma’am.” The fire lessened but the narrowing did not.

“Liora. Please, call me that.”

“Right. Uh, thank you, Liora.” Beaming she bobbed her head and told him to stand.