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"My lady, your master is dead. Your chains are cut. Your life and your decisions are yours from now until you so choose to give them to another."

He did not move from where he stood while he spoke, though his eye closed halfway, calmly watching her indecision.

"Do you wish it?"

"Then come."

He turned on heel and returned to the street where they had entered the town, not once looking back to see if she would follow. They were in the marketplace, and while there would be inns here, the better ones would be further across the town; they would also be much quieter, as well.

"...hrr?" The sweaty inkeep looked up from his magazine as two people entered from the street outside. A bandana soaked with cold water was wrapped around his head, and beside him on a table a small electrical fan was whirring on the fastest setting. Still, the heat inside the building was oppressive and the air deathly still like an oven.

Jin paused for a second upon entering the sauna of a room, blinked as he almost choked on a breath of hot air, and then proceeded to the counter.

The inkeep turned the magazine upside down on the counter and slipped his feet off of it when he sat up.

"...one?" he said, looking from Jin to Adrienne behind him; even as he reached underneath the counter for a key.

Jin glanced coldly at the inkeep, then turned his attention to Adrienne in the mirror behind the counter without turning his head. "...one." Though as he slowly reached his hand to a small leather pouch under his tunic to procure coin, he looked down upon the inkeep and shook his head.

"Your room must be clean, your room must be furnished, and if your room gives me cause, I will carve the price of it out of your hide."

The inkeep smiled, still sweating... from the heat. Below the counter he replaced the key in hand with another that had been hanging one rung to the left.

"...I sincerely hope that enjoy your stay."

"Surely you shall hear about it if I do not."

Exchanging the key for coin, Jin turned to the staircase on the left and proceeded up.

Jin turned his head to the left to look at her while he fumbled with the door, no longer looking at the lock.

"It's because of you, my lady. I imagine he didn't think we would be using the room for very long..."

He left it at that, opening the door and stepping inside; promptly crossing the room to pull open all the windows and lower the shades over them; the venitian blinds shut halfway. The breeze swept through the room quickly and wafted much of the hot, stagnant air out of it; though the blinds were drawn they did not inhibit the breeze too much, yet they did cast the room into shadow from the hot sun, and bar the view of anyone who might be looking on upon them.

The blinds clacked noisilly against the windowframe as Jin opened the door to the bathroom and leaned in to survey it.

"The lady comes first," he replied, making a quick sweep of the small bathroom to ensure that nothing was grossly out of place. The tile around the basin was beginning to crack and the grout was pulling up; he imagined that there was a measure of wood rot beneath the tile, though nothing that would matter to them... only to the inkeeper when the room downstairs began dripping from the ceiling.

"I regret now that there is nothing for you to change into, however..."

Once she had shut herself into the bathroom, Jin began to undress in the other room. At first he removed the scarf wrapped around his head and neck, then he removed the tunic worn over his clothing. He removed his belt; after removing the many things that were fastened to it and laying them across the tabletop. He did not bother to unthread the wire from his right sleeve, he simply removed the shirt entirely, down now to the thin cotton undershirt.

After kicking the sand and dust from his boots, he removed those, as well, and set them beside the door. Then, standing beside the window, he took each piece of clothing and beat it against the windowsill to remove the dust from it.

When he was done, Jin lay at the edge of the bed, propped up by a pillow, and held a flute in his hands.

Adrienne was quick and efficient in her bathing. After ridding herself of her clothes and her blindfold, she climbed into the tub and set to washing her hair, which was followed by a thorough and speedy scrubbing of her body, especially her scales. Once she was washed and rinsed, she dried herself with one of the provided towels, wrapping it around her body and tying it in place.

Letting the water out of the tub and gathering her clothes, Adrienne paused a moment, looking around at the room. It might not have been in the greatest state, but she found it to be lovely. The colors were pleasant and the view of the textures and different surfaces. These were the moment she savored, the moments when she could actually look on the things around her without seeing blobs of color. Such moments were brief.

Returning blindfold and veil to their rightful place, she turned and walked out of the bathroom.