The banging had stopped and the roaring laughter silenced, the drinks stayed glued to the table and all eyes followed the struggling girl limping down the stairs.
The owner of the tavern looked on along with his customers at the girl the old man brought him a couple of days ago. He almost thought she was dead since he hadn't been up to see her since she came here bloody and unconscious, but with the clothes she had and the comb that the children had found in her belongings it seems that she was a rich noble runaway, hate to say but he's had a couple of those in the years so he knew about their personalities and so did the rest of the town
When the young lady had finally reached the bottom of the stairs that's when she realized that the noise she had been hearing wasn't there anymore and that the only sound was her heavy breathing and the thudding of her heart that only she could hear. One look around and she saw the reason everything was so quiet, all eyes were on her and her trembling body.
The room was full of rough looking men and women, Dot found herself looking for the little girl that had been bringing her food, or even the rude boy to erase this feeling on isolation she felt. She did see a little girl but it was a different one from the one that had been bringing her food but they had a similar appearance in clothing and hair. The men's eyes still followed her as she walked to the strangely familiar man standing on the other side of the long table, after a couple of seconds passed as she sat some noise came back into the room
Dot could still feel their eyes on her but she tried to ignore them. "What can I get yer?" The tavern owner asked suddenly.
The tavern owner named Keith could not believe the girl in front of him, not even three days before she looked one step away from death but now when you looked at her wounds they looked weeks old, the cuts had heald in a matter of days
"Information" Dot answered Horsley to the big man's question, "The little girl that has been bringing me food for the past few days told me that the horse that was with me was with the man who brought me here, but she didn't say exactly where here was?"
Keith the tavern owner face the girl a strange look, he had thought she would be quite nervous while surrounded by these intimidating bunch but the girl looked calm her bright green eyes alert, her voice even though a little rough from lack of water was somewhat melodic, like a harp's voice being played by a dove's soft feather
"Hey, finally awake now girly!" The one who spoke was not the tavern owner but a heavy set woman carrying a tray of drinks and a round stomach, she had rough hair braided and twisted into a low bun, taned brown skin and brown almost black eyes a similar appearance to the tarvan owner who had the same colour hair as the woman and the tan skin matched with a lighter shade of brown for his eyes, it wasn't hard to deduce that they were related
"Oh pardon my manners, young lady, I'm called Agathe around these parts, the mean lookin' bear behind yer is my little brother Leonheart but you can just call him Leon" said Agathe and Dot for the first time since waking up felt the warm of kindness, the woman's eyes did not look at her with contempt and hostility like the rest of the people in the room but with a strange excitement, like a child who just got offered free candy
"It's a pleasure Agathe, my name's Dot," she said standing from her stool as her manners kicked in and reached her hand out in greeting, the woman's bushy eyebrows rose to the top of her head, a funny image it was but she took Dots hand nevertheless. Agathe was exited more than she had been in a while because this was the first time in their village that they had a polite female outsider let alone a kind female noble. The girl was all she had imagined a noble would look like, smooth clear looking skin, silky blond long hair, thin frame and delicate hands
Her hands were almost twice as small as her's were and this for some reason exited Agathe "Well Dot, Your horse is with the old man in the woods, I'll take ya to him after I fix you up some food and get your clothes from the hanger" Dot smiled gratefully and nodded sitting back on the stool and waited
•••
Not too far away deep into the woods the man nicknamed Viking walked with anger, not at any particular person but at himself not only was this talking longer than he anticipated but now there was an unknown girl in the village who could have been sent by 'them' so his mission to find the wolfman was top priority more than it was before
So far he'd found nothing, in all his three weeks of being here he'd found nothing to bring him close to what or who was plaguing this small town. This annoyed him - no it infuriated him. For the past three weeks he's been trying to earn the trust of the villagers and so far he's succeeded but only one person denied him the information he needs and it was the one person who he knew had the answered he needs And that is he was headed this humid morning, to the man who lived in the woods
But what bothered him more than anything was that beautiful stranger from Leon's bar, not only was she one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen but she had also invaded his always ready mind, making him lose his focus and not notice the presence of a mere weakling that invaded his room yesterday drunk
The strange girl had aroused a long-buried feeling of lust and desire that he had sworn to never indulge again and made those desires more powerful than ever just by being close to her he felt his mind blank over and his sense of self-leave him
At that moment the man nicknamed Viking made a vow to stay as far away as possible from the girl and solve this case so that he could get back to his ship.
Little did he know that fate had a different plan for them, and he wouldn't be able to escape no matter how hard he tried.