Venturing forth
The first two full days in her new home, Delilah did very little. She tended to Jäger, and nibbled at the food her mother had sent along. The kitchen still intimidated her, although she had a pleasant moment of victory figuring out how the water worked in there, with the long lever instead of the knobs like in the room with the chamberpot.
By the second day, she began to unpack the trunks and sort her belongings, placing folded dresses in the chest of drawers in the bedroom, and storing her bow and arrow in the tiny room off to the side with a shelf and rod.
On the third day, the bread was almost gone, and while the sausages and cheese would last a bit longer, she was growing extremely tired of them both, having had nothing but to eat for the last couple of weeks in hiding. Food held no real appeal to her, but it was time she at least made an effort in this place, and perhaps figured out what to with the kitchen. The idea of the telephone and using it to speak to people she could not see and did not know was too intimidating, and that left the choice of the tavern. A tavern could not be terribly different than the few she had seen in her life, right?
She pulled out a fresh gown, a new dress woven from soft black wool that her mother made after her return from the ducal estate, and donned the deep hooded black cloak her mother had given her for her journey into exile. One more check on the falcon, who was still agitated and uneasy in his new surroundings, and she followed the written directions to locate the tavern.
Even from the outside, she held little hope it would have anything familiar, but the sign was unmistakable and it was definitely the right place. She hesitated a moment, then struggled a bit to pull the door open, and stepped inside.