The last real Inn until reaching Denerim, a sad looking building, boards graying, shrinking, with mud chinked between the space left between the boards, moss gathering on the sunked roof. Raynia sighed and ruffled a hand through her greasy, unwashed hair. It had been two weeks since she had left Vigil's Keep, and she hadn't had a proper washing since days before she had resigned her role as commander.
Despite those speaking of all the good she had done as the commander, leading the keep to victory, there would always be those besmirching her intentions as to why she let Ameranthine burn. Or even in her comrades thoughts, why she hadn't let the Architect live to continue his work to find a perfect serum to release the Dark spawn from the song of the arch demon.
The once full bodied woman, now reduced to near bones, sat on a decaying stump in front of said Inn, her head spinning. All of her good intentions seemed to come to naught. With Morrigan's help, she had live through killing the Arch demon. Alistar was on the throne of Ferelden, along with the wife she had helped appoint; Anora.
Raynia herself was disproportionately in love with an Antivan Crow by the name of Zevran. She had word of him when she first arrived to the Keep, after killing the flood of Darkspawns who had somehow breached the keep, and killed, or stolen all those within. It was a sweet note, sweeter words on paper than he had ever been able to say in life around her. Raynia supposed it was easier to write untruths than it was to say them to someone who looked at you with true affection in their eyes.
Shaking herself out of the dark thoughts which seemed to prevail in her mind, she rose, striding towards the door of the ramshackle in before her. The door screeched in pain as she drew it open, and made the same noise while closing. This Inn was apparently not a large source of revenue for those who ran it.
Eyes fixing to the dull light inside, she saw one man at a table, slumped over his drink, and an older woman sitting on a stool behind the bar. As the woman saw her, she stood, smoothing her patched and worn dress. Raynia looked down at herself. Though dirty, her blackblade tunic still looked rich and lustrous, as if nothing could be-smudge it.
"May I be helping you, My lady?" The elder bar keep asked, tone polite and civil, one hand straying to her graying hair to settle it.
Raynia smiled, a rare thing in these times, and cleared her throat. It had been some time since she had spoke to anything but the wilds around her, "I'll be needing a room. Maybe a night. Maybe two. I've been traveling some time."
The woman nodded, quickly calculating in her mind what she could take this well dressed woman for, despite her obvious state of unwashed. "70 silvers, ma'am. Forgive me for the steep price, seeing how we're trying to fix the place up and all." Her eyes darted this way, and that. Raynia shrugged.
"Tis a fine price for the likes of me. I just need to rest. I've had a long journey, and after that I will continue on to Denerim. To meet with the King." Her eyes flashed in her sallow and thin face, not minding the price, but giving a warning to those who might mistake her for an easy target. Raynia touched her hair, which seemed coated and frayed. "I'll pay you two Sovereigns if you, or any of your help can draw me a bath. Whether it is just a tin tub, I will still pay you the same."
The elder woman pursed her lips at the cost and then smiled, a genuine, if not haggard toothed smile. "Will take us an hour or so, but we will do the best to please your ladyship. Not many out here are given to bathing," Giving a crooked smile, she glanced from side to side. "Many of our folks think bathing too often will give you the blight. Nice to see a lady think other wise."
Smiling back at the obviously spendthrift woman, Raynia produced the coin. "I will retire to my room. When the bath is ready, please send one of your sweeter maids to attend me." At this the woman frowned. Obviously she was the only one working at the Inn, and was trying to deduce how much of the coin should be spent on a lady to attend the woman in question. "If she is particular sweet faced, I'll throw in another fifty silver at her costs."
"I know just the girl. Sweet faced, and not attached." The Inn keeper was thinking worst of things, not on Raynia's mind at the time. She just wished a pleasant face to greet her with a towel. No other services required. The woman, finally telling her; "If you need anything else, Lady; Just ask for Reden. I will be here til dawn."
In the room, which the air was stale, and sheets staler, Raynia unclasped her armor, and tossed it to the side. Her small clothes were dank and smelly from the trip, after she splashed her face in the clean water, she left her clothes to soak in the bowl, with a bit of soap she had left. Stirring it vigorously, until the bubbles frothed in the wake, and let them stand. Standing nude in front of the mirror she looked at herself distastefully. Priding herself on a round firm bosom, before becoming a Warden, she looked like a shell of herself. At eighteen she looked sixteen. At the age of twenty eight, she looked like a twenty year old victim of famine.
Tracing her fingers over her ribs, she sighed, before sitting on the bed. Pulling up the pillow, she sniffed, smelling multitudes of travelers before her. Fleas began to hop on her, eager for a host. She pinched and popped those she saw, but became resolute she would not stay after her bath.
Presently, with a knock at the door, she smiled. A bath would solidify her into a person once more. Not just a whisp of a thing as she presently felt.
"M'lady," A sweet voice came through the thing door, "The bath is ready in the kitchen." Raynia, with some modesty wrapped a sheet around her slight form, and emerged from her room. "Thank you," she nodded at the younger girl before her. The girl smiled, and bowed her head; "Please to serve you, M' lady, me name is Annatia. Me ma'am sent some soaps for you to choose from. Rose scent tis' my favorite."
The pretty young girl with sandy blond hair, and brown eyes, held out a basket full of various homemade soaps, and Raynia chose what seemed to be lavender. "Many thanks to your Ma," she spoke earnestly as she threw the sheet aside and settled into the large tin bath in the kitchen, "And many thanks to you,"
As Raynia settled into the bath, Annatia sat on a small kitchen chair to the side looking somewhat discomforted. "Don't be unsettled," Raynia said with a smile, "I'm not looking for.. favors. I'm just more comfortable with women. Being as my travels seemingly lead me to men." Plucking the lavender soap from the side of the tub, Raynia began to scrub her hair, and body. Soon, the bath was foaming with suds.
"Ask your mistress for a new tub," Raynia spoke, her body liquid in the warmth; "If she is reluctant, add another fifty silvers. I wish to bath my body in a clean tub, wash all the soap away." Annatia left, leaving her in the tub. Raynia continued to soap herself, body desiring to be clean after all these weeks. Leaving her legs outside the tin tub, she sunk herself down, fingers crawling through her hair to release all the soap from her hair.
"Ah, I feel so bad, killing a lady in the midst of bathing." Came a voice while she surfaced. Quickly rubbing her hand across her eyes, she felt immediate focus.
"So, dont." She gave a smile as her breasts floated near the surface. Her Aquamarine eyes set a focus on the man now sitting on the stool. He was a dark hair man, with the face of a dullard, looking at her body through the suds.
Eyes brightly flashing, she lunged out of the bath, sweeping her palms over the surface;throwing a bathe of sudsy water at the man. Weapons not far away, she had her hands on the volcanic, voice of velvet, and a hand around his neck, thumb firmly resting against his adams apple.
"You're from the crows?" She hissed, reaching for Vigilance, which she had placed on the other side of the bath; "I happen to know, dear sir; Your guild master is probably dead. You are now doing this assassination purely on a dead mans request." Slitting his throat, and pushing him away from her body, she sank into the chair where he once rested. Never could she enjoy just a single moment without blood shed.
Annatia pushed back the door with a startled noise at the bloodied man on the floor; "Your mistress is not discerning who she lets within her establishment?"