A low chuckle escaped from Rue's lips as she looked back at her companions.
"Patience, please, everyone," she said with a silvery smile, "I know it doesn't look like much from here, but you'll see in a minute."
She walked around to the side of the tree, unhinging a length of rope from a small catch. Down came a huge wicker basket, a slightly lighter shade than the deep maroon of tree's trunk.
"My house is in the crown of this tree," Rue explained, "And in order to get to it, we have to winch ourselves up to it. I don't think that the rope can hold all of us at once, so we'll have to go up one at a time."
Rue perched on the edge of the basket, taking the length of rope in her hands. Bit by bit, she rose up into the crown of the tree, and then let the basket drop to the ground as she stepped off into the front door.
Rue's home was rather small, but it had everything that she needed inside, and nothing more. Just a bed, a bathroom, a galley kitchen, and a little living room, littered with a pile of the ballerina's 'dead' pointe shoes, and notes about how to perform the Kitri variation from Don Quixote.