Nicolas braced himself for the impact of hitting the floor and was pleasantly surprised when he landed on the soft clean hay below him. It still jarred him when he landed but not as bad as it would have if the hay hadn't been there to break his fall. He stayed still for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness in the train car. It seemed his luck had started to turn around as he the contents of the car came more into focus. Lots and lots of hay was stacked up everywhere around him. He was very glad that this way fresh hay and not the foul stuff that tended to be in these cars. They didn't really change the hay out very often and it was usually left to rot away if not used frequently.

With his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he stood up and brushed himself off. He was just about to start walking around when he heard a noise to the right of him. Nic froze and very slowly started to look over to where the noise had come from. It was very hard to make out anything in the dark, no matter how much he had gotten used to it. It was then that he noticed a small dark bundle over by the large hay bale and was shocked when he saw the glint of eyes that shone out at him from the light that came in from overhead. Instantly on guard he crouched down and began to make his way over towards whatever was lurking over there.

He had forgotten about his bag and cried out in dismay when the small animal that had been closed up inside of it jumped out and ran towards the dark shape. "Lira, no! You'll get hurt!" He threw all caution to the wind and chased after the animal, right towards whatever was over in the corner.