The one was easy enough, and Mialla answered immediately, while pouring first the baroness, then herself a cup of wine. "I am completely healthy." She responded. The other, though... "Iam not wanted either in Lancrest or here in the west. In fact, this is the first time in my life to be in the western baronies. Any other domains, though? I haven't, that I know of, broken a law, but that is not quite the same thing. It is a long story, and I suspect it may be a familiar one."<br/><br/>Mialla took a breath. "Several decades ago, far to the southwest, past Lancrest, there lived a princess. She was said to rival the sun in her radiance, the zephyr in her gentleness. She was married to the prince of the realm, and she was a good and faithful wife - except for that one day, when a traveller visited the court." Mialla played with her hair, watching the baroness carefully, knowing she was revealing the elegant point and blunted taper of her ear - not quite human, and, if she cared to, expressive enough to communicate emotion, though she had learned to keep it still. "I can but surmise how charming he must have been, and how fortunate his timing. The prince believed his swelling wife to be carrying his child, and left no opportunity to display her; the baby would be their eighth."<br/><br/>She took a breath, sipped her wine. "The child was born, several weeks late, not with the rounded ears and round eyes of a human, but with elongated, tapered ears and slightly canted, almond eyes. There could not have been any doubt she was not the prince's, and the only traveller with these features was long gone. So, the girl was given to a wet nurse, the pregnancy and birth having been far too public to cause the child to vanish and proclaim a stillbirth. She was tutored, as she grew up, taught all the forms and manners of courtly life, to be a pleasing, unobtrusive presence. But always, there were those reminders - the shock of red hair, the green eyes that were not shaped quite right to be a human's, the ears. In her sixth year, she was fostered to a remote relative, where she was to be raised as a lady of the court, until such a time as she was needed to reward a minor vassal or knight. When that time came, though, the girl had turned into a young woman, full of life, full of spirit, full of her own ideas. She was informed of her departure, and left herself the evening before that, choosing the road over a life as prize." Mialla sighed. "I never met my father, but I think he, at least, would approve."