Una would be awake today; she recalled the schedule with mixed feelings. On the one hand, Una had probably become her closest friend in the time since she’d known her; on the other, Una was also probably one of most the perceptive and… sharp individuals she’d ever met. In fact, Una could usually be counted on to see right through her, sometimes quite frustratingly so. Still, it was also probably one of the reasons why she liked her so much and they usually got along so well.

She slowed her pace to a walk as she went along the third floor’s interior balcony on her way to the fourth floor stairwell. Una would, no doubt, be up there, watching over their clan and, probably, reading a book. She could picture the familiar scene now. Una would be there, perched by the window, wings draped over her shoulders with the sun on her back, reading. She would wait until Demona was across the room in polite speaking distance, put down the book, their eyes would meet, Una would greet her, Demona would either sit down with her, or Una would stand, and they would talk. It was a scene that had played itself out a number of times so far. More often than with the others – Una’s mate, Leo, for some reason, preferred not to take his turns awake during the day and instead to give them to Una, whom he knew would appreciate them more than he would for the extra time to read. Demona could suppose understanding his reluctance to stay awake. It did somehow feel… unnatural, to be a gargoyle awake during the daylight hours. For one thing, everything was so bight and vivid to your eyes, to where it looked almost like the world were glowing with light (it didn’t look like that at all to a human’s eyes). She also felt like she had so much more energy now too. The more direct sunlight one were exposed to, the more the effects magnified. Gargoyles fed on solar energy, not unlike plants, and operated at night on both that stored energy and the consumption of food, meat primarily. Where a human like Elisa could easily go without meat consumption and be perfectly healthy, the same could not be said of gargoyles. As the sharp teeth evidenced, they were largely carnivores by nature and needed meat to survive and thrive (though they could eat a few other things too). Awake during the day though, the hunger for meat was gone, one just wanted to be in the sun. It was even a slightly addictive feeling and could leave you feeling a little blissful or lethargic if one indulged in it for too long without keeping active. Leo, from what he’d said, did not enjoy that feeling very much; though, privately, Demona suspected it was more a combination of being stuck in his ways, wanting to be able to give his mate more time with the books she so loved, and, perhaps, an aversion to the loneliness that one might feel alone in a room where all the rest of your clan, his mate included, were in stone sleep (she was there sometimes, but was often out on business, leaving whomever was awake alone to guard the clan). Loneliness was one thing Demona understood all too well, after all, so she could hardly begrudge the choice for that reason alone, let alone the others.