Boook

The girl is laying down, eyes closed, her laying station is pretty sturdy, she notices.
Then she can smell hay..wood..smoke..bread..
She feels a sharp pain on her nose, her eyes shot open and she sees a cat biting her nose.
A cat?
She hugs the cat, who complains by meowing.
She sits up and studies her surroundings-
She’s in a small room, walls made of stone, there are two other empty beds, a small hearth that crackles weakly, she can hear some soft chatter coming from downstairs.
There's a broom, a small ugly desk with a crooked stool, some sagging shelves with some hats hanging on and a big chest full of clothes.
She pets the cat, the cat has lizard eyes and big teeth
The girl scratches her nose
“You can’t bite me, your venomous, now my nose is gonna be big and red and itchy..I’ll never make a good first impression”

She scolded the cat.
But she kept petting it.

She got up smiling and stretching
“It actually worked, or maybe I feel asleep and this is a magnificent dream”
She goes to the small window and looks outside, the sky is beautiful, dark blue, but not empty, it’s full of dancing stars, she can see all the constellations and the shadows of the nearby galaxies, the’re some pink and purple and green…
The moon is low on the horizon.
Finally, no sun bothered her eyes.

She then reaches out the window and takes some yellow leaves from a plant growing there
“Well kitty, this is the part where our protagonist is still working in the inn, so I’ll go say hi to my temporary colleagues!” she pets the cat again, then kisses it on the head
“Have a good day-” she lifts the cat and check it out “-missy”
She puts the leaves in her pocket and can feel her glasses
“Oh my, Visausterio is such a nice guy”
She puts on her glasses

Then she put on some shoes that were in the middle of the room, she take a random robe from the chest and braids her white hair, then leaves the room

She walks down the stairs, she’s finally able to see the ambiences she always imagined in her head.
The steps are steep and made of purple stones.
The handrail is soft under her palm, it’s made of wood but it's covered in moss.
It’s probably not safe, but who cares?

She can hear a low chatting, the clanging of dishes, the chopping of a knife and the fire cackling

The dining hall has few people eating, the room smells like pine, leather, smoke and freshly baked bread, it’s warm and comforting.

She goes for the kitchen.
“Look who riseth!” a deep voice resonates
The voice comes from a tall, large, humanoid woman, she is part reptile, she has scaly skin and a heavy tail behind her, which thud on the floor twice, she has thick, long, blond hair, which she keeps at bay in a braid.
The woman is wearing red robes and a brown apron, she is washing the dishes.

The girl enters the kitchen “good morning guys!”
“Good lord! What happened to thou?” the old man who was chopping meat asks snappily.
He is an old human man, with big rounded glasses, a funny mustache, he’s partly bald, the hair he has is long, white, gently wavy, that he keeps in a lazy low tail.

The girl covers her face “the cat bit my nose, I think I’m having a reaction haha..”
The woman stops chopping and pivots to look at her better
“Are thou sure it’s just that? Thou look different..”
“Yeah yeah I’m sure, it happened once before in my home town when I was young” she shrugs and scratches her nose

It happened before, this exact same situation, to the real protagonist that is.
Although she had to find out about the antidote by herself.

The girl take some almonds from a jar
“Can I?” she indicates the chopping station
The man looks doubtful, but non the less he leaves room for the girl
“As thou wish Riri”

The real protagonist's name! Well she’ll probably have to go by Riri for a little bit.
But as soon as she leaves the inn she’ll change her name..she already has something in mind

Riri starts chopping the almonds and leaves, then she puts some water near the fireplace to warm, she then puts the almond, the leaves and the cat's fur from her clothes in a bowl and starts crushing them all together.
After a long time crushing she adds the water.
Mix mix mix.
Ready.
She gulps down the hogwash.
The taste is not bad, she likes almonds, the leaves are lightly spicy, it’s just the idea of eating cat’s fur that's not very appealing, but she’ll survive.

She wipes her mouth with her dress sleeve.
“Alright boss, what’s today's assignment?”
“Go serve the ostrich eggs to the table in the left corner, and the roasted flesh to the lady sitteth alone”
“On it” she does a military salute
Riri grabs the plates and goes to serve.
She keeps the plates up high, she never worked as a waitress, she feels like a model who has to pretend to be serving on the runway.

“Good morning gentlemans, here’s your breakfast” She leaves the plates on the table
“I thank thee, little maiden, though it is time for supper” the man with bowl horns smiles.
“Oh well a girl can get confused, traveling does that sometimes” she answers swiftly, smiling
“Ah, yea, where did thou journey?”
“I went back home, really far away, for a quick visit”
“And thou are already returned to work? Speak of being swift, eh, Skully?”
He elbows his friend who was just listening tiredly, he nods.
“Well gentleman I shall leave you to your supper” she gives a small bow and goes to serve the other lone lady.

The rest of the evening goes smoothly, the lizard woman, who’s name is Dragana, gives her the tasks to serve and clean the tables as well as cleaning the floor.

As the evening goes on, more customers start to arrive, which is super good news, Riri was always eager to experience a typical medieval-inspired tavern in first person.
She was also curious to see the different species that there are in this world since there are humans as well as humanoid-ones.
There are also some interspecies individuals, such as humans with purple skin, or as tall as 2 meters.

She runs from one table to another, chatting with customers, asking where they are from, their occupation, most of them are friendly, she knows cause most of them already passed from this inn and became friends with Dragana.

The real protagonist hated this job, she detested having to serve other people food and having to be nice to them, it made her feel inferior.
Riri kinda understands, in her world she would hate this as well, but here?
Here it’s different, first of all, it’s temporary, she’s going to leave eventually and second, here it’s not like in her world.
She saw her big sister coming back home each day after work, tired as hell, complaining about rude customers, stressed bosses and obnoxious colleagues, having to be extremely nice to appeal to the clients and she had to hide in the bathroom to sit down, cause her boss didn’t want her to sit down, what kind of rule is that??

When the moon completely disappears, it means the night has officially begun. Some customers go up in their bedrooms, but most of them start to get drunk, play games and have fun.
A little band of 3 young musicians enters to play music and some people start to dance as well.

Riri runs to the kithes
“Dragana, what’s left to be done?”
Dragana is dumping a big pile of dirty dishes in the sink
“We washen now”
Riri huffs but rolls up her sleeves
“Thou worked really well today, are thou sure that was poison and not some elixir?”
Riri snickers “I just had a really regenerative nap”
“Well next time I shall try it too”
Dragana smiles and gives her a big pat on the back, which makes her lose balance for a sec.
The old man, who’s name is Athanasii, is cleaning the rest of the kitchen.
Since he cooks all day being hunched over the sink would just worsen his back pain.

Riri washes with the fury of a dishwasher, if she knew how to make one, she would, but ahimè, she spent her day basking in different art forms.

As soon as they're done, Riri runs in the dining room, she wants to party with everybody else.
She jumps in the middle of the crowds and goes to see the trio playing.
They’re pretty young and look all similar, they're probably siblings or cousins.
Red hair, tanned skin, freckles, light brown eyes.

She starts dancing and the girl playing the flutes starts playing near her, they start circling each other and they dance like that for a while.
The boy playing a small guitar with 4 chords starts singing and most people sing along, most are drunk, a person topples over their own feet and almost crushes Riri.
She moves away swiftly, she’s pretty small compared to these adult humanoids, so she goes to stand on a table and starts singing there, harmonizing with the guitarist.

The girl with the flutes stops playing “Hail, lassie, ye have a good voice in sangin'”
“Well thank you, I used to be in a choir when I was younger”
The flautist gestures to the other 2 to stop playing
“Weel then, sing somethin', an' me an' the lads will give ye musical accompaniment”
“Really?”
The lads nod
“Alright, but you have to be able to improvise, cause you probably don’t know this..”
Riri starts beating a tempo with her foot on the table, then starts singing the first lady gaga song she can remember, obviously in a more lyrical kinda-way?
She only knows modern songs, so the musicians have to adapt to that style.
What comes out is a medieval cover of bad romance, the crowds love it and they all cheer and clap.

Even Dragana and Athanasii came out to see, they’ve never seen Riri that much cheerful, much less giving such a spectacle after working all day.
They give each other a surprised look

After one hour or so of carousing people start to leave, drunk and jolly, some back in their room, others at home.
Riri is getting her breath back after that concert.

Riri salutes the musicians
She brings the last dirty cups in the kitchen to clean tomorrow, now she’s way too tired..
She gulps down a big cup of water.
She turns off the hearth and candles and then goes up the stairs.
She can’t wait to slump on her hard bed and fall into a deep sleep.

When she enters the room she can see the old man drawing something under the light of a candle, on that decadent desk.
She takes off her shoes, but keeps the robe on, the cat is already sleeping on her bed.
She slips inside the heavy sheets, they smell like wood
She puts the sheet up to her nose and wiggle her feet for a while
“Good night Athanasii”
“Swete dream, litel lady”
He gives her a warm smile and keeps drawing

She closes her eyes, she can hear the pen tapping on the paper, the fire crackling and a bird singing a sweet tune
Is this the dream bird they talked about in the book? The one from which the lullaby was inspired..

The cat moved on her aching legs.
She can feel her sore muscles relaxing, then her all body become heavy