Three days’ hard ride. Three days it took her to get out this far into the ashlands. Whether from sorrow or fear it was too late for recompense. She wanted certainty she could not be found. The resources of the northern marches were considerable and no chance could be taken even with many hours head start. Her first leg, she rode for nearly eighteen hours out of the Godsfang range, making a stopover in some bump-in-the-road nowhere town she couldn’t remember the name of. It was all day from there to the next nameless hole and again here. Here she could take a day and set out at a slower pace.

She pondered the notion of [i]why here?[/i] She set out with no map, nor any plan. She just rode west with no goal in sight at first. Yet somehow she felt like this place was her destination, as though she had meant to end up here. She only gave the thought a few more seconds as she rode into town. She and her horse were both exhausted. She practically fell out of the saddle in her dismount and made her way towards what she gathered to be a tavern. She wanted to find a place for both her and the horse to stay for the night and get them both some food. She hadn’t brought much in the way of survival gear in her huffed departure.

It had only been three days but the heat was just barely becoming tolerable. When the scorched ashlands air first hit her it had felt like fire. The mountains were much cooler to the point of almost snowing year round. For what she was used to, she was handling the heat remarkably well. She was handling her hunger somewhat less well, and sped up her pace towards what she presumed would be a reasonable place to eat.

The tavern was felt busy for such a small town. It was barely a tavern to start with, but had a hustled atmosphere to it. The tired crowd was too preoccupied with either food or alcohol to notice her. A little anonymity was never such a bad thing. The power recognition held was not always controllable or benevolent. She found a seat to the side somewhat near the door where she could rest her legs for a moment. She would need to hang around the counter briefly to ask about food for people & horses. The counter was also where most of the building’s current population were, save for a cloaked figure and smallish male struggling to play music off to the side.