Sleep left Nessalir only with great reluctance. When she realized that her consciousness had returned, her first response was to keep her eyes closed, take a deep breath, and try her best to rex back into slumber. There was no reason for her to be awake yet, after all.

  Unfortunately, the waking day had come, and it refused to be ignored. Nessalir y there for a few minutes more, vainly attempting to will herself back to sleep, before finally giving up and opening her eyes.

  Part of the problem was that the inn at Halvar's Crossing was one of the nicer ones Nessalir had spent the night in. Most vilge inns throughout the Northern Lands were little more than barns that had been converted haphazardly to pces of rest, but the Trout's Last Meal had been built from the ground up for the purpose of housing weary travelers. The bridge for which the vilge was named brought in more than enough trade and traffic to justify such a building.

  So rather than some barely-insuted hovel with a bed of hay, Nessalir instead found herself coming to in a nice room on a firm yet soft mattress. The woolen sheets over her body were warm and cozy, and the still-slumbering body beside her was warmer still.

  As she sat up, that other body stirred. The woman groaned and opened her eyes, blinking a few times and then brushing her staw-colored hair away from her freckled face. A look of shock passed over her when she saw that Nessalir was her bedmate, but it passed quickly, repced by a blush as memories from the night before returned to her mind.

  Nessalir couldn't begrudge her the shock. A patch of blood red scales ran down her neck, and more such scales grew all across her back. Her eyes were gold, with bck slitted pupils, and her left hand was entirely reptilian, with small bck talons extending from the end of each finger. She stood, and her thin, scaly tail swished about behind her. Nessalir brushed her hair, a far brighter and more vibrant shade of red than her scales, behind her ears, and fished around the pile of clothing on the floor for her trousers and undershirt.

  "I thought I'd dreamed st night," said the woman in the bed.

  "No dream," Nessalir told her. She slipped one strong, muscur leg through her brown trousers, then the other. "But enjoyable, nonetheless."

  "Yes…" the woman agreed. "I mean, I've never… not with…"

  "A woman?" asked Nessalir with a smirk. She was holding her undershirt, but had yet to pull it on. Her naked chest was bare and exposed to the other woman, who hardly even attempted to hide her stare.

  "A… well, a you," the other woman said.

  Nessalir chuckled and pulled on her undershirt, before picking up her belt and tunic. "I hope the experience was a memorable one."

  "Oh, trust me, it was," said the woman, a smirk of her own on her face as she watched Nessalir dress herself.

  When she was fully clothed, with her sword and her ax hanging comfortably at her side and her coat bound tight over herself, Nessalir made her way downstairs to the common room. Her bedmate remained behind to tend to her own nakedness, and made a few token attempts to get the drakkowar back into bed with her, but Nessalir was too hungry to go for another round of passion with the vilge girl.

  The scents or porridge and honeyed ham filled the inn, making her mouth water. Nessalir tossed a coin to the innkeep before she sat down in the corner, and it wasn't long before a pte was brought to her.

  Vilges like Halvar's Crossing were the sorts of pces that Nessalir could sometimes imagine herself settling down in. They were remote enough for some privacy, but along enough trade routes that they weren't poor for it. It was exactly the sort of bance that seemed ideal to her. As she ate, she even allowed herself a small fantasy of building a house on the edge of town and tending to a garden in the Spring.

  Her reverie was interrupted, however, when a big man came stomping through the front door of the Trout's Last Meal. No, she corrected herself—a boy. His beard hadn't grown more than inch from his face, and his eyes, as angry as they were, were a young man's eyes.

  Those eyes were also focused on her. The big man was striding toward her, puffing out his chest and tensing his arm muscles. It was all Nessalir could do to keep from sighing.

  "Whatever quarrel you have with me, can it wait until after I've eaten?" she asked.

  The man leaned over her table and jabbed a finger at her sternum. "You were with my girl st night," he spat. "Tovir says he saw her with the dragonblood freak, which is you."

  "Unless you happen to have any other drakkowar running around this vilge, I'd say that's true," said Nessalir. "Woman with the freckles and the yellow hair?"

  "That's my Gerti," the man said. "Now, I've heard stories about you, and if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your filthy cws off her."

  Nessalir's eyes roamed over his form. He had the muscles of a field-hand or a mason, the sort that were good for hitting things and holding people down. She smiled at him.

  "Understood."

  The man blinked. He'd probably assumed this would get ugly, but Nessalir wasn't interested in fighting this early in the morning. He stood up, keeping his chest puffed out—doubtless pleased that he'd intimidated the famous swordswoman. Then he turned to go just as Nessalir's bedmate—Gerti, apparently—came walking down the stairs.

  The girl saw him and stopped short, her face turning bright red. This time Nessalir did sigh as the man whirled around to face her.

  "You—! You!?" he sputtered.

  Nessalir swallowed the bite of ham she'd just taken. "I was unaware anyone had cimed her."

  "No one has cimed me!" Gerti insisted, rushing over to the table. By now, they'd accumuted quite the audience. Everyone in the common area was watching, and Nessalir was pretty sure she could see the innkeeper taking wagers with the people at the bar.

  "I am not yours, Rost!" spat Gerti. "I must have turned down your proposals half a dozen times by now! When will you finally accept that you have no future with me?"

  "But you'll sleep with some wandering whore!?" the man roared. He jabbed Nessalir with his finger again. "Stand up and face me, woman! I'll kill you for this insult."

  Rolling her eyes, Nessalir stood. She was a tall woman, but even so Rost clearly had a full head on her in the height department. She had to look up to meet his gaze, which he clearly took as a sign of his own superiority.

  "You don't look so tough," he said, and threw a punch.

  A gloved hand caught it. It was her left hand, the one that, uncovered, would be unmistakably draconic. Her tail swished behind her in annoyance, and Nessalir tightened her grip on the man's fist.

  His eyes widened as he realized that she'd stopped his punch with one hand. They widened even more when he saw her other hand curling into a fist of her own. "Wait—!" he began, but it was too te. Nessalir's punch drove itself deep into his gut.

  She released his fist as he doubled over gasping for breath. With a shrug, she kicked him. Her boot collided with his chin, and he flipped over onto his back and sprawled out over the floor. His eyes rolled up and stared at nothing, and he groaned and muttered a string of nonsense.

  Nessalir stepped over him, past the stunned Gerti, and tossed another coin over to the innkeeper. "For your trouble," she said. He caught it and gave her a nod.

  Without another word, Nessalir the Red stepped out of the inn, out into the cold morning beyond.