[Ilya]

The warmth snug in the fireplace's stones rubbed against his temple and lulled Widlast into feeling lead-limbed and content, a sensation he knew would vanish in a moment as the aches of the road remembered themselves to his mind. He stuck out his boot and cracked his toes and sighed. Probing a bruise on his wrist, Widlast was sifting for what would've occasioned it when he felt something push on his boot. That one I'll be able to account for, he thought, and looking down in a saw a sturdy walking stick withdrawing quickly from the toe.

He followed the stick up to...quite a sight. Like the innkeeper, she looked no more than a child, but was snowy-haired, withered and weathered, and in a boisterous, venerable tone was making him an apology. "Didn’t mean to mash your foot so!!" she said. A blink was all the surprise he betrayed, though studying bright brown eyes age had not robbed of their quickness, Widlast wouldn't have been surprised if she'd caught it. He laughed a cracked, unseasoned laugh that scratched his throat coming up. "No worries, old mother," he said, "no worries at all."

Bending down to rub his toe, he felt the soreness more in his neck and shoulders than in his foot. "All's where it ought to be," Widlast said but too soon, for just as he spoke the bodkin tucked in his bracer came loose. He caught it ere it hit the ground, but these holbytlan seemed unalarmable folk until they were alarmed. The last thing he wanted was to be chased out of Stock for supposed thuggery on account of a hidden dagger. As though backing away from a spooked horse, he lowered his eyes and rummaged through his haversack and, graces be, found a bruised apple within. He made sure to cut it in a slow, measured way, and offered the first piece to the holbytla woman, hoping the creases made by his smile would cloak those of his nerves.