24th Spring, 517
After leaving the Sanity Centre, Sorla headed off purposefully through the city. After just a few steps she noticed that she was walking on what felt like... it couldn't be... yes, it was. She was walking on fur. Tiger, from the looks of it. She shuddered. It felt so terribly alive.
Four hours later, and she was yet to see anything that looked like the big, yellow inn of Serenity Berel's description. Serenity's words echoed in her head: 'You'll find it eventually. Trust me.'
She grimaced. The last thing she felt like doing was trusting a madwoman in a mad city. She carried on. She had been walking long distances almost daily for more than six months, so an extra few hours made no difference. Still, she was keen to find Rikar some food. Unlike out in the wilderness, he couldn't scavenge for himself here. She would have to think about how to keep him fed. She chuckled to herself, remembering the first time he had caught a mouse and brought it to her, proudly. They had been working more and more smoothly together since they left Wind Reach, and were now a well-oiled team, but at the beginning she had struggled to get him to even chase anything, let alone catch it and bring it back.
Suddenly, she saw a large building made up of three yellow cubes in front of her. It seemed to have appeared just when she had stopped thinking about it. Something to bear in mind perhaps.
She headed inside. An elderly lady smiled at her from behind a counter. Sorla was exhausted, but remembered her manners this time. 'Please, I want a room for the rest of the season. The cheapest you've got. Thank you.'
She handed over the money - 6 gold mizas and 7 silver mizas - and headed up to the room the woman described. It was painted a pale shade of green, like the first leaves of spring outside Wind Reach. She swallowed. Tonight would be the first night she had ever spent truly alone. She silently thanked her two favourite deities, Priskil and Eywaat, that she had Rikar. That reminded her, she needed to find him some food. She went back downstars.
'This might be quite an odd question,' she said to the woman at the counter, 'but do you have mice in this inn?'
'How dare you! This is a respectable establishment, as far as Alvadas goes at least. You won't find any vermin in here.' Sorla wondered if the woman was perhaps protesting too vehemently.
'Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. It's just... my crow needs feeding, and he likes to eat mice, and I thought if you wanted to get rid of any... I wouldn't tell anyone.' She smiled what she hoped was a winning smile.
The woman looked around. 'Well... we do have the occasional mouse. Very occasional, you understand. The cat has a bad habit of leaving them on the stairs actually. If it could catch any, your bird could certainly eat them. Not that you'll find many, of course. As I say, this is a clean house. And we didn't have this conversation.'
'Thank you,' Sorla said. 'You have been very helpful.' If she could feed Rikar mice from the inn, she might be able to cut down on her expenses. And she had the feeling it wouldn't be a bad idea to get the innkeeper on side either.
For now, she headed back upstairs, to her first bed for more than two seasons. She slept soundly that night.