No one in the dining area is present to answer Cris, but the clay bowls and wooden plates are waiting and inviting enough... a rustling from the kitchen-- perhaps the sound of a bag of rice being poured into an iron pot-- is the only response she receives at first.  The broad wood table is scarred and pitted with rough use, but smooth to the touch from scrub upon scrub, waxing and oiling having darkened it to the shade of a muddy bog.<br/><br/>The sound of something heavy being lifted, a fire being stirred and wood-- thick, heavy, resonant with its stolid note-- being tossed onto an iron fire rack.  Billows being pumped, the sizzle of spilled water boiling off the outside of a kettle, then going silent as what must be heavy cookware begins to heat steadily.<br/><br/><div class="floatleft">(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/0f/19/e4/0f19e4b587fa28545207ea6facb69943.jpg)  </div>Footsteps from the kitchen shuffle on slate floor, scraping and gentle and insistent in an almost elderly gait.  Pressure at the kitchen door rings its iron handle before it swings open, with it a rush of warm, humid air, and the face of the elven woman from the night before.  Her hair is out of its modest plaits, the cloak gone.  And her face-- though the night before seeming hard, indistinct in many ways, is... different.  Still, she is recognizable... without a doubt, she's the gray-cloaked Raven who stepped to the stage.  But somehow different... perhaps Cris missed the details of her scarred face in the dim light, and due to her painful-- not a memory worth rekindling.  Not yet.  ... but it was still<i>her</i>, somehow.<br/><br/>She wears a simple shirt.. not a woman's, not tied at the neck.  Her small breasts are bare halfway down their swells, but she doesn't seem to care, for the laces are half-undone and all gaping wide.  The hem of the oversized shirt hangs halfway down her slim, hard thighs, where her skin is bare until just below her knees where her doeskin boots are equally gaping wide.  Pausing there, a red-glazed pitcher and cups in her hands, she stares at Cris, looking the girl up and down for a moment as if, perhaps, there's some invader in her kitchen.<br/><br/>Shrugging, she extends the cups.  "There was no beer."  She waggles her fingers, making the cups dance a bit... clearly offering one to Cris.<br/><br/>"We didn't meet proper.  Fen."  The girl nods, looks Cris over, seeming to take her in with equal measures pity, admiration, superficial appreciation, and annoyance.  "C'mon, girl, 'ave an ale and some food.  We'll talk."  The last word seems almost painful to Fen.  It comes clear in an instant... she hates being the den mother, but what this girl's been through deserves better.  And clearly, as deep as the red, scarred ridges on her face, Fen has felt as much pain as Cris in her life... and plain as those scars is the sad gleaming fury, there in her eyes, whispering of a secret, shared pain of women suffered to the world of masters and contrition and murders and lusts of men, suffering and sliding a blade back in response.