I was finally cleaner than I had ever been since I arrived. It was done with such care and professionalism that a sprinkling of perfume would not have been out of place. Given the smell of horses here, it would have gone down well with me. However, it was still the stables and while I was treated like royalty, I was treated by the equerry and his groom. Still the best treatment I have ever had from any adult. My fur was so light it moved with every breeze. And my tail looked so full and fluffy. I smiled like a fool. "Thank you, thank you. You doing too good." I cursed my limited vocabulary.

"Milady, I was erwfweew tod sdfsdf dfsdf." And he bowed,

I bowed too. This somewhat formal moment was rudely interrupted by my gurgling stomach. Now warm, dry and clean, it finally wanted to be pampered.

"Where did I eat?"

"Sorry, what is Milady eating?"

"Cabbage, soup, eggs. No meat. Like clerics," I added helpfully.

He shook his head. "Milady, I don't think we can eat with clerics."

Maybe here in the capital, the clerics were more high-minded. Not enough to dampen my high spirits after getting dry and sparkling clean.

"Milady, do not fear. Please follow!"

With that, we both dashed through the downpour in the open courtyard into a doorway on the other side and then, much, much slower, down a wide flight of stairs to a landing at the entrance to a large kitchen. The stairs were no problem for me, descending trees was much more challenging.

At the bottom of the stairs were three open fires; two whole pigs were roasting in front of them, and pots or kettles were boiling on the sides. In front of the third fireplace, three large pots hung from the rod. On large wooden tables, the women (I saw no men) were chopping and slicing vegetables or stacking plates.

Then some men came in with fresh firewood and carried some of the heavily laden trays up the stairs at the far end of the kitchen.

"Martha," the equerry commanded in a surprisingly loud voice.

One of the women chopping greens looked up and came to him; in fact, everyone who had looked up came with her.

"Kendrick, what are you doing in my kitchen?"

I did not wait for him. "I wanting eating, please. Cabbage, carrots, bread. Please." I smiled as nicely and as fang-free as I could. Now all eyes were on me. My stomach did not care and started to gurgle again. I blushed, deeply embarrassed. "Sorry, I today wide walking."

"You are certainly hungry. Just today. Come on!"

We walked down the last five steps, then to a far corner and another five steps up to a balcony overlooking the whole kitchen. There was a bench and a table. As usual, I sat on my hind legs.

"Cabbage, you said?"

"Vegetable, leaves, little boiling good. Egg and bread good. No meat. Please." Such a long speech, using almost all my food-related active vocabulary.

"You want sdfdsfh?"

"Sorry, not understanding. Just coming here world."

"Eh?" She shook her head and took some leaves from a shelf against the wall and held them up to my nose. "Spices?"

"Oh, yes, spices. Please."

Martha smiled a lot more and said something that probably meant 'at least someone appreciates my cooking' or something and shouted some orders. Everyone hurried back to the tasks they had neglected on our arrival.

It was quite a show to see the food being prepared. Back in my world - no, that felt wrong. This world is my world now. Back in my original world, I had heard of fancy restaurants where the chefs came to your table and prepared your food. While technically the same, this kitchen was as different as it could be. Firstly, it was rather dark, not romantically lit by candles, but only by the great fires. Secondly, they were not concerned with appearances. There was a pot of bones for making soup, earthenware for collecting blood and all the things that go with slaughtering and using the entire dead animal. Fortunately, the butchery was in a corner, barely visible from where I was sitting. Nearer was a bakery corner where two women were making some kind of pastry. But most of them were cleaning, peeling and chopping the vegetables, roots and fruits that were the main ingredients.

Martha was chopping too, but in between she would dash along the tables looking for mistakes, like a hawk looking for its prey. Then she would knock a young girl's hand and show her what was wrong. Or she would go to the pots and pans and call out for ingredients.

Another woman was in charge of the serving. When something was ready, Martha would simply nod. The other woman would silently order someone to bring her a large bowl or whatever was needed, and the next tray would be prepared.

It was not long before Martha arrived with the other woman, carrying my food. "Hello, I am Trellis."

"Hello, I am Kiara."

" I am Martha," she repeated, not wanting to be left out. "Please enjoy this dfsgfdg asasd fgdfgfg."

Even though I would have eaten anything right now, it smelled great. There were two bowls, one with a big salad and a soup with no meat but lots of vegetables, made with milk and flour. And spices. The soup tasted even better than it smelled. The same with the salad, there were carrots and some other roots, light and dark, the latter with an earthy smell, almost like beetroot. Lots of leaves that I couldn't identify but which tasted great. The salad had a fruity sauce that complemented the spicy soup.

Martha and Trellis looked pleased as I ate as fast as the hot dish would let me. The soup came with a wooden spoon but the salad was to be eaten with the fingers. Well, I did manage. But it was the best food in this world so far. "Smelling good, eating good."

They smiled happily.

"Kiara, may I touch you?" Trellis asked.

"Yes, touching good."

Soon they were both stroking my lower back. Even Kendrick joined in. Didn't he work on my fur for over an hour just before we got here? It looked like I could make it just by charging for petting the squirrel-cat if there were no other jobs for me. I cleared my throat before this got out of hand. Martha and Trellis quickly remembered that they were neglecting their work, and the equerry also withdrew his hand. "Milady, sorry, please eat."

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

* * *

Clean and well-fed, I yawned. Oh my, I was tired. I yawned until I was out of breath.

Kendrick was already standing. "Milady, er, please come." Apparently, he was afraid I would fall asleep here in the kitchen. Well, it was warm ...

I rose. But despite the long walk in the rain to Krenburg, nothing ached. Great, now I was in good shape, just when we arrived. Still, my legs were heavy and a flight of stairs awaited me.

Before we entered the courtyard, I put my hand in front of Kendrick, who was about to sprint across. "Please, Kendrick, no sleeping stables."

He stopped. "Milady, I understand, but..."

"No." This was not negotiable. "I sleeping out stables?"

"No, you cannot sleep in the courtyard. No, that won't do. Hmm." He thought hard. "Yes, Milady is from another world. So Milady is a safsf. Yes."

"What is a safsf?"

"Someone who is here for their land. You are here for your world."

"Eh?" I tried to guess what he might mean.

"Wait!" and he ran up another flight of stairs starting next to us.

Finally, it clicked. Was he really going to make me an ambassador to a world where I had died and which I could not even reach? Even non-human as I was now?

He returned a little later with a cleric wearing a much nicer tunic than the ones worn by the clerics in the army camp eight days ago, which felt more like a year ago. The cleric inspected me as if I were a horse.

"Good evening, Sir, I am Kiara," I reminded him of the simplest social norms like greeting.

"Good evening," and waved it off like an annoying fly.

How rude. But he just stared, then closed his eyes.

When he held out his hand, I shoved it away. "Asking first," I growled, baring my fangs. This was probably not in my favour, but this was no way to treat an intelligent being. As far as I knew, only humans and centaurs could speak. Then the cleric should have no trouble putting me in that category. "High Cleric Clavs asking, General asking. You not asking. What?"

The cleric looked surprised. Great, someone out of the loop. We had arrived hours ago, and some version of the story had surely made it out of the healer's room, or the stables, or even the kitchen. And more important people than him had probably already looked through the letters from my saddlebag.

"You probing soul, yes?"

He nodded.

"Then I agree."

I took his hand and put it on my lower back. A few seconds later I felt a tingling sensation. But it was weak, weaker even than Freya's healing. I was not sure if that meant he was weak or very skilled. Most likely he was scared.

He certainly did not seem happy. "Indeed, full human-sized soul," he snapped, turned and nearly run up the stairs.

Kendrick called after him, but the nameless cleric simply disappeared at the top of the stairs.

While it was nice to have confirmation that my soul was fully healed and even more fully human, we were back to square one on the question of where to spend the night.

"Milady, can you climb these?" Kendrick pointed to a spiral staircase.

"Yes." Since the stairs were sturdier than a fir tree, I should have no problem scaling them.

* * *

Climbing up was no problem at all, even though I spiralled nearly twice around from head to tail. However, the clearance was low, and I had to walk on all six. It was a tight fit with my wide shoulders and hips. That was the problem: I was like a bottle brush from my fluffy ears over my wide middle body to my long bushy tail. By the time we got to the top, the stairs had probably been cleaned of all the cobwebs and loose bits of plaster; Kendrick's grooming was negated in a minute by a three-storey climb.

Kendrick looked as miserable as I felt. "Wait!" and he hurried down again, returning soon with a brush, breathing heavily. Still out of breath, he removed the worst of the debris.

After two minutes I held his hand. "Thank you. Stop. Let's going."

He looked at me accusingly. It was probably beneath his honour to let me go like this.

I yawned again. "Today long walking. Please."

"Milady."

I raised my hand and looked at him pleadingly. He slumped but put down the brush and led the way. Another flight of stairs, but this time only ten straight steps led to a wide corridor with high double doors. This must have been some kind of royal quarters before the Republic. I wish I knew more about the history of this place.

Kendrick knocked on the first door on the right and quickly began to remove some more of the staircase debris from my fur. It took a while for the door to open, but at least my head and ears were free of cobwebs. "Kendrick, what" And then he saw me.

"Milady, Kiara, this is Seneschal Guld."

"Good evening," I said, at a loss for the right formal greeting. Also, I had no idea how important a seneschal was.

Kendrick took full advantage of the moment of surprise. "Milady, here," and from then on, he spoke too fast for me to follow. He seemed to get quite a story going, I heard the names of Clavs and General and a lot of other stuff.

It had the desired effect. The seneschal thought for a moment.

"No stairs, please," I added.

Which made Kendrick point to some cobwebs and bits of plaster in my fur.

The seneschal nodded and reached for his uniform cloak, which made him look much more impressive: his shoulders seemed a hand wider and the brass tinkled like a xylophone.

Unfortunately, the seneschal had already forgotten my request about the stairs and was heading straight for another spiral staircase, this time downwards. The castle had more of them than holes in Swiss cheese. Going down on all sixes headfirst was not the problem, I had done it on trees all the time. But the stairs were even narrower than the first. I bruised my left rear flank. I cursed and went slower. At the bottom of the stairs, I found fresh blood on my left flank. Great, just as the wound on the other side had almost healed.

Kendrick mumbled more polite excuses to Milady. I pouted as I hoped a real lady should but could not hold it for long and fought not to yawn again. We walked through more long and narrow corridors to another staircase, a straight one this time. Somehow the castle began to feel like navigating through treetops, with all the ups and downs and twists and turns.

We came out on the other side of the kitchen building. This was where the servants came out with the trays at the top of the wide staircase at the bottom of which I had eaten earlier. Next to the stairs, near the wall, was a single door, wide enough for me to pass through comfortably. It led into a small room filled with empty barrels. The floor was cobbled, like the courtyard. Although this was a storage room for old barrels, it didn't smell bad, thanks to a small window on the far wall. Without glass, of course.

"Milady, how is the room?"

I smiled a happy, toothy smile. "Good, good!" The seneschal stepped back, so I closed my lips again. "Sorry."

"Milady, er, how do you sleep?"

"I lie down."

The seneschal nodded. He called once and a guard appeared, quickly followed by the other two. They were ordered to move the barrels into the stables. Kendrick got his groom as well. I stepped forward to help too, the empty barrels weighed next to nothing. But this time Kendrick stopped me. "No, Milady," and winked, "Milady, need another cleaning."

"And need err going?" I blushed. I really need to expand my vocabulary.

He chuckled. "Anyway, follow me."

There was a pit in the stables. But the hole in the stone did not look clean enough for me to safely do my business without a good chance of soiling myself. Besides, it was not very clean to begin with, to put it mildly. So I went to an empty stall and did my business on the straw, beaten, but I really had to go.

Relieved, the second cleaning began. Kendrick had fetched another kettle from the kitchen. Again, I was able to wash my hair with warm water, and again a second cleaning with warm water to get the plaster off my fur.

I was half asleep, purring when he snipped my fingers. "Milady?"

I lifted my head, which had sunk down. "What?"

"Milady's room is ready."

They had done a great job in a short time. The floor was swept clean, they had even wiped away some of the stains. A small table with a lit candle lantern stood at the far end (which was not very far, just twice my length). There was no bed, but two coarse blankets made a makeshift mattress, with clean linen on top and another blanket for cover. The room had no heating. But I did not care: If I could sleep comfortably in the forest hills, the castle would be no challenge in terms of temperature. I could have even done without the blankets. On the verge of tears, I hugged Kendrick.

He squirmed, "Milady."

"Thank you!" I said, but then yawned again and again. Seeing me, even Kendrick yawned. It must be quite late, even the traffic from the kitchen had died down. "Good night, Kendrick," I said, "Thank you."

"Good night, Milady."

And then the door was shut to my own room. I dragged the mattress away from the wall and into the middle of the room, then threw myself onto the mattress: My head on the linen and my forelegs off to the side. With a last conscious effort, I pulled the blanket over me.