The soft and subtle moonlight peaked through the cloud covered sky, as the druidess tossed and turned in her new found home. The relative calm and quiet interrupted by a loud and unignorable howl brought Alnarra, who usually slept like a rock, rocketing from her sleep her ears twitching trying to identify the source of the noise. Breathing rapidly she looked over to see her best friend still asleep in the other bed, which in a manner brought her comfort. For all of her years of combat experience, Validriin had always been the persistent hunter. If he was sleeping through these howls, then whatever it was could not be a threat.
With a soft smile smile she pulled the covers up around her. Her feet hung off of the rather short human bed, leaving them a bit cold without socks. Alnarra rubbed at her eyes a bit before looking around the room. Most of her belongings still sat packed in boxes and crates that littered the place. She sighed a bit going to look at the window behind her. Shadows and shapes moved without end in the dark forest below hopping from branch to branch, tree to tree.
She shook her head a bit looking back over to Val, who even amongst her rustling still slept soundly, his wolf companion nestled away at the foot of his bed. With a quiet snort she pats his head before collecting the small human blanket off of its place on the bed and heading towards the doorframe. The tavern seemed dim as more and more of the candles and oil lanterns had been blown out in favor of the night. The darkness that was usually a comfort to her now served as a shelter for any number of things that could have dropped in on her.
Araane and the others had all warned to never let her guard down while in these forest, and she wasn’t about to let herself fall to something foolish the first night. The druidess picked up a lantern off the bed lighting it as to give her just enough light to see around the room. Ever shadow seemed exaggerated in this new location, what in the dim light of the day in Duskwood had been clear now seemed like exaggerated monsters on the ceilings and walls, every corner filled with some new horror for her mind to fill in.
In irritation she shook her head, “You’re getting far too old to be scared of shadows Alnarra,” she said to herself, making her way into the large hallway that connected all the rooms. Alnarra looked around at the rooms that surrounded her, some of the doors shut, others wide open and well lit as their occupants went about their afterhours activities. She tried to avert her eyes as not to pry into anyone elses affair, making a beeline for the stair case.
Each creek of the wooden floor beneath caused her ears to twitch as she brought the blanket up around her closer, holding the lantern out in front of her to serve as a guide. She stepped softly down the stairs finally coming to the center of the inn. The familiar glow of the fire still went on quietly, but the staff all seemed to have gone to bed or disappeared, which was truer she couldn’t really say.
With a brush of her hair, Alnarra began to make her way towards the kitchen. She had been hoping she might be able to find some supplies to make some tea. After slowly making her way through the doorframe, she began to shuffle around in the cabinets, setting her lantern on the large table where meat was prepared.
With her head buried in a cabinet she heard a voice from behind her, “Ey! What are you doing?” Alnarra slammed her head against the wooden frame of the cabinet as she pulled her head out turning around to find herself face to face with one of the inn’s staff members. “Oh…. Sorry,” she said rubbing her head, “I was just looking for some tea leaves to boil”. The disgruntled and rather tired human simply pointed to another one of the cabinets before leaving the doorframe and her field of vision.
Blinking as the character made their way into the darkness once more; the tired druidess gave a yawn and turned to the cabinet he had pointed out. Sure enough it was stuffed with all manner of dried tea leaves in little jars, a happy little smile came over her face as she retrieved one of them and then went to find a small pot in which to boil them.
Luckily the pot proved much easier to find, and after finding some water, Alnarra was well on her way to the Tea she had been searching for. She sat by the small fire she had started in the kitchen, pondering flicking her finger against the wooden ladle she was using to stir the pot. She gave a frown as she looked back out into the much quieter Tavern. The noise and commotion of the day had died down to a dull roar as only a few individuals sat out in the lobby talking and socializing.
Alnarra pulled the blanket she had wrapped around her further up, covering her ears finally satisfied with her pot of tea. Pulling it off the fire and pouring it into small cup she sipped at it instantly regretting her choice. As she attempted to clean off her tongue she went to find the jar she had taken the leaves from only to realize the label read “Stable Mare’s Green Leaf”. A deep frown crossed her face as she looked down at the medium size pot she’d brewed.
“Well maybe someone will want this in the morning,” she grimaced trying to clean her tongue, “Someone surely”. With a heavy sigh she put her cup back down and picked up her lantern, perhaps she didn’t need to drink any tea anyway. With a defeated expression she began the march back to her room, navigating past all the small objects scattered about the floor. It would seem this place was run by her children with their toys, except for the fact that they were all adults and the toys were daggers, knives and other similar objects.
Stepping as lightly as she could over the mess of objects she finally found herself back in the small two bed living space, crawling back into the cramped little cot of a structure, she snuffed the last of the light from her lantern before laying her head back on the pillow. Staring at the ceiling she tried not to think about all the terrible noises that seemed to come from outside.
“Maybe I should check on Intera,” she thought to herself, picking up the lantern again, making her back down through the poorly lit maze and finally finding herself outside. The cold autumn winds seemed to be especially cruel tonight as she shivered even with the blanket wrapped around her. She bit her lip making her way towards the stable, her eyes ever watchful for anything that might be following her. Passing empty stable after stable she finally came to the place she had kept her trusty Frost Saber.
The beast lay peacefully in the hay as she held the seemingly even dimmer lantern in the cold night sky, “Oh… I guess she’s ok too,” she frowned a bit. Shaking her head she left the hay stable, stepping on small seeds as she went causing her to grimace in pain, “Should have worn shoes,” she mumbled to herself finally making her way back in.
With another defeated crawl back up the stairwell she pulled the blanket off, putting it back on the bed, crawling under the covers she tried to bury her head in the pillow, a quiet tear running down her cheek as she bit her lip. She held tightly to the pillow and after it seemed like all of time had passed she finally managed to fall asleep once more.
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