Part 1
After consulting with the elders and describing the smell of Xellma to the council, they voted that Mira needed to inform the Ashe family of the events she experienced in the Far Frozen North. Princess Syndra's crimes were great, but it was decided that the Moonfall Prince would choose her punishment.
As Mira traversed the rivers and lakes of Karand, slowly making her way south, she wondered what kind of person Verka Ashe would be. You could only learn so much from reading about someone, and the libraries of home were rather sparse on so-called foreign born rusalki like the Ashe royal family. The mitigating factor of being the daughter of the Moonfall Prince did mean she had more written about her than most. Mostly they described the horrific experiments she constantly approved by one of the most strikingly evil military units on Karand, the Imperial Chemical Weapons Division.
The stories she heard of what they did bothered her, but what she experienced from the Elves was even worse. If it wasn't for that demon, she would have died for certain. As she passed through the forests of the Dragontail Mountains, she came across an Inn near a lake. The council had advised her to steer clear of any humans outside of the Ashen Empire, but something about this Inn felt different. For reasons she couldn't quite explain, she found herself standing in front of the door. She was so focused on the door, she didn't hear the human walk up behind her until he placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Nervous?" He asked, causing her to practically jump and scramble to get away from him.
"Stay back!" She shouted in rusalki, causing him some surprise as well. She backed up against the wall of the inn, and exposed her teeth, hissing. "I'll kill you!"
"Please calm. Not enemy, friend." The man responded in broken rusalki. "Not harm. Inn safe. Wait here."
The man disappeared into the Inn and for the moment, Mira was left alone. As she was contemplating what to do, the man reappeared with an overweight middle-aged man, who whispered a word to the other man, who then returned inside.
"He tells me you shouted in rusalki at him." The fat man said to her in perfect rusalki, a large smile on his face. "You're not the first one to visit my Inn, but it's still a rare sight."
"W-who are you?" Mira asked, still suspicious.
"Just call me the Innkeeper. My Inn is quite safe, everyone is welcome here. You must be hungry if you've ended up at my door, though." He said, still smiling. "Why don't you come inside?"
"You're not human." Mira said, sniffing at him. "Smell wrong. Even wronger than the demon I met."
"Well spotted." He replied, his smile dropping. "How about you don't ask any questions about who I am, and in return I feed you?"
"You speak rusalki, so you must know our diet. How would you do that in an inn full of surface dwellers?" Mira asked, still suspicious.
"How about you come inside and find out?" He asked with a wink. "Come on."
Mira decided to follow the rotund man, despite her misgivings.