World's Tale: Royalty and The Dragon

Chapter Three: The Valley's Lullaby

It wasn't anything new.

Nel didn't warm up easily to strangers.

She didn't like being seen by outsiders and although nobody really understood why, her reasons were hers only, she didn't feel the need to give any kind of explanation, to anybody.

She had fought other times with Rohan, but he had always been careful enough to not step on her privacy.

She bit her lip, her eyes fixated on the road as she walked towards her own hut.

It wasn't entirely Rohan's fault either, she tried to step aside out of reflex but ended up making the situation worse on her, not to mention the awful little show they put up in front of someone from the Royal Family.

The Royal Family, uh.

Holding the tome close to her chest, Nel opened the door to her cabin with her foot. A glimmer of light sneaking in as the door creaked open, revealing the domestic atmosphere of what she called home.

It wasn't anything special, with the bare necessary to live in.

Her bed was in the farthest end of the room, to the right, and immediately next to it she had placed a small desk with merely an unlit candle standing on its surface. Usually there would be a support for whenever she had time to sit down and read but as things were, she hadn't had the occasion to do so for many weeks now, and the reading stand had been moved to one of the dusty shelves all the way to the other side of the room, close to the cookery she had rarely even used.

She had no talents whatsoever in cooking her own meals, and Gods forbid if she hadn't gotten some food poisoning the very few time she ever tried. Since those unfortunate experiments, and thanks to Rohan whom gave her a job, she started providing food for the Inn instead in exchange for free suppers.

The door next to the unused cooking utensils led to an even smaller part of her house, more like a cubicle, really, in which she had carefully built a makeshift wooden bath and a stove right next to it, in case she wanted to warm up the room and the water at the same time. Thank to the small window up top, the temperature never became unbearable.

Of course, being able to prep baths was something that happened not so oftentimes. Firstly, because it was hard to get a hold of bath beads to use and secondly because bringing the water from the nearby lake to the bath was more of a hassle than a blessing, really.

Nel wasn't, in fact, unaccustomed to the practice of taking a dip at the lake during late night, when everyone else was asleep.

Hanging near the main door were her bow and quiver both of which had been handmade by herself.

The bow she had carved it from the bark of an Aspen tree. Engraved along the limbs ancient glyphs that she sometimes happened to find on the tomes she read. Meanwhile, her hip quiver was made with the finest leather she had found whilst traveling in the Center, the innermost part of the Alon domain and where Lence was located.

Crafting her own equipment was the only thing for which Rohan had ever complimented her in ten years she had been part of their community.

Sometime past, Nel also used to take care of some plants and flowers, sitting in pots neatly organized alongside the windows but like she did with most things she eventually grew tired, and the plants slowly died out.

She had always wanted a pet, though.

But the certainty that she wouldn't be able to look after it, just as she did with the plants, always restrained her, thankfully.