The rest of the evening for Axley had gone relatively uneventfully. Seeing that Cilia had chosen her own room, Axley ended up letting Sasuke sleep in the other bed, deciding to simply sleep in her mangy bard's outfit caked with dirt, blood, and grime...why again? As Axley fought to sleep, she had to combat such thoughts of idiocy before she finally drifted off, allowing the exhaustion from the past several days and the absolute fluffy splendor of the soft bed to carry her into a deep, dreamless slumber, the first real sleep she'd had since the cataclysm struck the Imperial Rubble. She was out well before Fergus returned to give candies; she was wholly unaware of his kind gesture, relegated instead to trying to be as well-rested as possible to tackle what was still quite some journeying left to come.

She awoke to an empty room. No doubt Sasuke had woken at the crack of dawn and left to do the shopping she had denied him the evening prior. That worked out well for her, as she was finally able to shed her dirty clothing and call down to the inn's staff to request some bathing water. If she was going to be meeting the mayor, she wasn't going to look like she'd been dragged through a muddy trench to do it. Her morning was spent soaking her dirty feeling away, letting a bar of goat fat soap scrub away all the uncleanliness she could find. She took a relatively quick bath, doing what she could to soak her clothes and wash them while the water was still hot. The morning was relatively cool and breezy, so Axley took to hanging her wear outside the window, allowing the gentle wind to dry her clothes while she flopped back into bed, enjoying the downy goodness of the comforter for what little remaining time she could. She doubted she would be seeing such luxury again soon.

With clothes dry and a full night's rest, Axley donned her bard's gear once again and headed downstairs, casting a quick glance to the owner's husband and ordering herself a simple ham steak, hold the eggs and double the cornbread. Just the way she liked it back at the taverns she had populated doing her job. She was in the middle of happily digging into her final hearty meal of her stay when Fergus had presented her with her ceremonial blade, newly reforged at the ironsmith's and returned before she'd come downstairs. The changes were subtle, but when Axley gripped the hilt of the blade it no longer felt unbalanced and wobbly; it had been reworked on the fly into something more than usable in combat...while retaining her family's crest and intricate design. It was not a master's work...but certainly well on the rise to mastership. She'd have tipped the one responsible if she had the coin spare.

With little else to do but wait, Axley finished her breakfast and made small talk with the owner's daughter. Turns out she was multitalented in the musical arts; while she mostly entertained with the flute, she had been practicing the fiddle as well and was near ready for a public performance. Axley gave her what advice she could, especially in the manner of playing to the crowd and other helpful advice to help her stand out in the mind's eye of the average inngoer. Making an impression was just as important as the music one played, after all. She was unfortunately forced to cut her little lesson short, however, as it seemed one 'Master Hsu' had decided to come to them as the leader of the village. Axley bade the young girl farewell before joining the others, silently keeping towards the back of their small group. Diplomacy wasn't exactly her forte. Best to let the lawyer and mercenary handle this conversation.