The sun was hanging low in the sky as Tatiania stopped for the night at a small inn just past the bridge. The day's travels had been long and the ride jarring thanks to the old horse's gait. She looked over the inn, crinkling her nose at the frog songs and buzzing insects in a nearby pond and sighed as she thought of listening to them all night. It was better than some however, and her mind conjuring an image of the various sounds of fighting and merrymaking she'd heard at the Pony. How people could be so loud in a bedroom was beyond her, and she shook her head in disgust before opening the door.
Almost immediately, she was greeted by a server, his friendly voice grating on her nerves. Her eyes glanced around the room, pausing briefly on all the hobbits gathered. Hobbits, she thought, were annoyingly friendly and talkative folk, quite unlike herself. Still, it was dry and warm, so she followed him up to the counter to pay for a room and a meal for the night, before finding a table in the corner to sit and read while she waited for her food.
In the middle of a particularly good prose depicting an old war in Dale, the hobbit returned and set a plate before her with a wide grin, asking her if she'd care for anything else. Gritting her teeth at the interruption, she shook her head at him, pinning him with a look that left him wide eyed and scurrying off to tend other chores.
With a second shake of her head, more in amusement this time, she picked up a fork and began eating as she resumed her reading, mindless of the taste of the food on the plate. Food was food, after all. Meant to fuel the body, nothing more. By the time she finally looked up from the last passage, she realized that she'd finished eating and furrowed her brow, almost wondering if she'd eaten at all except for the fact that she felt full.
Tatiana closed her book and, placing it in her bag, she stood and tossed a silver on the table before making her way to the back where she'd been told the beds were. She figured two days of travel at the least, before she'd see Thorin's Hall.
Stripping out of her clothes, she fell face first into bed and almost instantly fell into a dreamless sleep.
