Vanysa's departure hit her like a mountain dropped out of a clear blue sky. Her visit to her home, the place that was, the place where all her friends had lived, fled, and mostly died, it left a mark in her heart. She put a hand to her chest as she rose up into the sky and looked down on the world below. The capital city had never been her favorite place, but it was always a piece of her home. The land spread out beneath her wings and stretched toward a horizon and seemed like it could have gone on forever, and the direction in which she looked was the place of her birth.
The old man whose life she'd taken was likely mourned and buried by now. His grave would be in its place on the outskirts of the village. The headstone facing the rising sun. 'They came to see him off, peeled apples and cast the seeds over his grave… so many trees grew there before the last invasion… so many gone, it'll be years more till the orchards are as they used to be. And his will be one of them. They'll come to his grave in the festival times, and age, and die, and one by one they will lose all memory of him. Like Barintacha, a muddled story if he's lucky and forgotten forever, more likely, if he isn't. But he's always where he wanted to be… that's not so bad.'
She cracked a smile in the direction of the village, and left the Queen and capital behind, and as the chill winds of the sky brushed against her hard red flesh, she couldn't help but savor the bittersweet sense of her own present immortality, and her flight, for what it was, the fulfillment of dreams from a long gone girl who climbed up trees and reached up to the bright blue as if she could have grabbed it with her own two hands.
'I wonder if she was thinking I would come to see her… or at least if I would visit my house… no. No not until I get a vacation with Demi… but maybe we could come here, have a working vacation, maybe set up a lab in my basement. Something next to the space I've set aside for a nursery.' Vanysa's little smile spread a little wider when she reached down and touched her belly, and then her touch came away when the village clusters came into view.
It was pitch dark outside, the moon high in the sky was concealed for the moment by thick cloud cover, and the smell of rain that hadn't yet fallen was thick in the air. Down below, the nearest cluster of about forty homes was a mere dim shadow of outlines, but here and there an open window revealed the pulsing yellow glow of a candle's flame, and sometimes the demoness caught a glimpse of shadows intertwined and wiggling in wanton embraces.
'Lucky.' She chortled and started her descent, a gleam in her eye as she came closer and touched down just at the outskirts of the little homes of wood and thick straw thatch bundles.
She looked herself up and down, "Hmmm… maybe 'not' this look, eh?" She told herself and drew her wings back into her body. Her horns retracted, her skin returned to its natural pale hue, and her talons were gone. To any without sufficient talent or spell casting skill, the honey blonde haired woman was just a wandering stranger. 'Even today they still might think it's strange for a,' she stretched out her arms and legs, 'beautiful young woman to be wandering the roads alone at night.'
She then dismissed the thought, it was nothing a good lie couldn't cover. Vanysa folded her hands behind her back and began to walk through the village road of hard packed earth, this close to the capital, the place had never been threatened by beastmen, but the modular designs that were a hallmark of Draconic Kingdom construction and tools were still on full display. Horses slept beside carriages, and the hooks on the outer walls held bags of food and trade goods ready to flee with at a moment's notice.
The place she wanted to find proved easy enough, the headman of the village always had the largest house, even if it was nothing compared to the grand estates of great cities.
But it was the biggest in the village at least, with the freshest thatch roof, though her peasant-born eyes could see even in the dark, 'They didn't really remove the base to lay fresh stuff, just replaced the obvious rot. I guess the old man here isn't that popular. That or they're lazy.' Vanysa wasn't sure which it was, but a nagging certainty that she'd find out the answer very quickly, tugged on the back of her brain.
She knocked on the house of the Headman, and nobody answered.
She brought her hands to her hips and frowned at the door, chewing on her lower lip, Vanysa tapped her foot and waited. 'This is not how village hospitality is supposed to work!' She thought with snark and dissatisfaction, then brought her right hand up, and rapped the back of her hand against the door three more times. 'I'm paying my respects before asking for lodging, the least you can do is answer the blasted door.' She knocked again. 'Our chief would never have kept a visitor waiting!' Her inner peasant felt the outrage of the traveler roil in her guts as the Headman broke every tradition in the book of peasant lives by keeping a traveler outside alone at night.
She snorted when she knocked the sixth time and finally heard the noise of somebody grumbling and cursing on the other side. She caught the noise of a lamplight being struck within and the faint yellow glow passed beneath the door to touch her feet like the start of a sunrise.
"Yeah, yeah, I hear yah, I'm com'in already, keep yer damn pants on!" A gruff old voice snapped and drew closer, shuffling noisily over the floor until the resident yanked the door open. He bathed her body in the warm pulsing lamplight. His left foot came back when he found himself staring at the radiant Vanysa, making her shadow dance behind her while the little metal lantern swayed in his outstretched hand.
"Who're you and whatta you want?" He snapped, recovering from his brief surprise.
"Rude." Vanysa reproached him and narrowed her eyes at the hunched over, wrinkled old man. "You know what I want, I'm a traveler here at night. The custom is that lone travelers get food and shelter for the night, and it's your job to provide it. They didn't give you the biggest house and fix your roof just because you're such a charmer, did they, grandfather?" She added the unearned honorific, and he raked his eyes up and down the body of his unlooked for guest.
"Why're you travel'n alone fer, things be pretty peaceful now but… still, t'aint safe fer most folk." He drifted off into thoughts of his own, but Vanysa answered him quickly enough.
"It's a little late for talk like that, isn't it, grandfather?" Vanysa batted her eyes up at him and then let out a heavy, long, loud yawn, which he quickly imitated. "I'll tell you in the morning, but first, sleep?"
He grunted. "Got an extra traveler's room." He leaned outside and pointed down the length of his wall, "Round that there corner, no lock, one bed, one rod for clothing. Take it or leave." He said, and then stepped back in and slammed the door in her face.
Vanysa stared at the shut door and frowned, the man smelled richly of guilt, but of what sort she couldn't say, not yet. 'It doesn't matter, I'll figure it out tomorrow.' She told herself as she found the little structure he spoke of. It was barely the length of a small bed, and there was indeed just one long wooden rod between two walls for holding clothing. The mattress was little more than sacks stuffed with straw, but for her? 'It'll do.' She told herself and flopped down on the surface, the straw crackled under her weight, and she promptly fell into a deep, deep slumber until morning came.