If Owen doesn't reach out to steady her, it's all the more altruistic: "I don't have the best track record with the trees around here," he says, breathing through his teeth a moment until the ground settles. Earthquakes are fine, earthquakes are normal. They're just normally capable of being pretty horrible, and he eyes the inn over his shoulder.

"Watch for anything rattling around, shit tends to go sideways after the big one softens it up."

Kind of literally. "At least the fields are pretty open." A trellis falling on him would be new. In the aftermath of the shake, an alarmed human voice competes with a horribly feline wail in the kitchen. He looks at the creaking door, then to Karen, hopefully for long enough to divorce the sound from what he says. "Run for it?"