The Breakfast

As the sun rose, beams of light shone through the window of Octavia's room, illuminating herself and the rest of the area. Birds fluttered by, perching on the many trees of the castle's Royal garden, singing as the new day rolled in.

The light and the birds were something of a natural alarm clock for Octavia, slowly waking her up from the most comfortable nap she had had since arriving in this world.

*yawn* "That was an amazing night's sleep." She stated as she stretched her arms out to wake up. This was then followed by unfurling her tail and giving it a wiggle in places to remove any kinks or cramps from the night.

Making her way off the bed, she got started with her routine, starting with her stretches.

Having had this new body for a while now, she had started to incorporate some form of stretches in order to work out her tail. So far this mainly involved moving it around her in a circle and bending it in different places along it. She also came up with one, in which she lays on the floor, and stretches it upwards, holding it for as long as she can. Doing these should help keep her tail ready for the day and may even improve the muscles it uses to move.

The rest of her morning routine would normally include showering, washing her face and brushing her teeth, but given the world she was now in, she didn't know how much of this would be possible.

Before she went to call the maids for assistance, asking for whatever people needed to start the day, she moved over to the window. Looking out, she hadn't realised that below the window was the castle garden. When she entered before, when it was starting to get dark, she had only looked out from afar, only allowing her to see the town.

Looking down she saw an abundance of colour, where the garden was filled to the brim with flowers. Tall trees were positioned on either end of the garden forming a natural border. As she looked around, she could see several people wandering around holding metal watering cans, watering the plants as they moved around the garden.

"I need to visit the garden soon. It looks beautiful."

Pulling her gaze away from the majesty of the castle garden, she headed to the bell, giving it a ring once she arrived.

Like before, a few minutes later there was a knock at the door, and Octavia invited the maid in.

"Good morning my lady. Do you require any assistance?"

The maid who entered was the head maid from before, who was the first to arrive to help with her bath. It was likely she had been assigned to her or to this room specifically.

"Yes. How do people…errr… get ready in the morning here."

"How do people get ready?" The same quizzical face appeared on the maid as she parroted back the question.

"I-I mean, I've been living in the forest. For a long time. I'm not used to being in a town, so I don't know how people start the morning." Octavia replied, trying not to sound like she was a complete imbecile.

"I see. Normally, when a lady is ready to start the day, they ask for the maid to use cleansing magic on them, like yesterday evening. This removes any dirt and grime from your body. This however only affects your skin, so it does not clean your teeth, so a washbasin is usually requested. I shall go grab one for you to use.

Curtsying, the maid then left the room and returned a short while holding a wooden basin and a few other assorted items.

Placing it down, the maid did the same chant from yesterday and filled the wooden basin with water.

"If a household does not have someone who can use water magic to cleanse, then you would have to wash as normal. The washbasin can be used with a cloth to clean your face, but the cleansing will deal with this for you. To clean your teeth, this paste can be applied to them, and they can then be rubbed with a wet cloth to clean them."

Once she finished speaking, she walked over to Octavia and performed the same cleansing spell from yesterday.

"Thank you for your help. By the way, I don't believe I got your name before."

"My name is Anna, my lady. I shall take my leave now. Breakfast shall be served at the next bell in the dining hall."

Once Anna had left, Octavia got to work cleaning her teeth, medieval style. The paste was in a small wooden bowl and was grey in colour.

"Why do they have a spell to clean your boy, but not one to clean your teeth." She wondered

"Well. Here goes nothing."

Scooping up some on her finger, the first thing she noticed was how gritty it was. It was a far cry from the toothpaste of the modern world. She then applied it all over her teeth, getting some behind her teeth as well. Dipping the cloth into the water basin, she then began rubbing them.

The paste came off fine. It took a little bit of work to get it all, but it seemed like it did the job. As far as she could tell it was mainly an abrasive to scrape grime from your teeth. While it didn't feel nice to use, it was over now, and it did remove the plaque covered feeling she had felt before.

With her bodily ablutions done, she was about to call a maid to fill the bath but realised the cleansing spell meant there wasn't any real need to, so made her way to the wardrobe instead.

Searching through the wardrobe, she tried to find an article of clothing that would work for her new body. Obviously, the trousers were out of the equation given her tail, so she went to see how a dress would look.

Before this though, she found what she assumed was the underwear for medieval women. It was a very basic white article of clothing. As far as she could recall, it was known as a smock and just loosely fitted over the body. It was however made of some sort of silk, likely due to it being clothing for nobility.

She then moved on to the actual clothing, where she took out a nice full-length blue dress, put it on and looked around the room for a mirror of some sort.

After a good bit of searching and she found a mirror behind the room separator.

"I thought as much."

While the dress looked lovely, it did not work with her snake tail, as the end of the dress covered a short distance past where her human half met the snake half. It just looked odd where there was still a good amount of snake tail left.

Discarding this option, the only thing left was the tunics. These were vibrant in colour, and some even had fur trims. Looking through them all, she decided to go for a nice red one, with fur lining the edges of it at the cuffs, neck and bottom of the tunic. There was also golden embroidery along the edges with the fur, showing these were the clothes of nobility.

Trying it on, she could tell it worked much better than the dress and had found the type of clothing she would wear from now on.

She was now all ready for the day.

…

Shortly after she had found the right clothes, the bell in the town chimed, signalling breakfast.

This was then followed by a knock at the hidden door.

"Come in." She called out to Sylvia.

"Are you ready for breakfast?

Sylvia wore a gorgeous blue and purple dress that went beautifully with her skin tone and hair. She could also see that the bath and likely cleansing spells, had thoroughly removed any of the muck from their time in the forest, giving her a lovely glow.

The sight stopped Octavia in her tracks, where she found it hard to even say a simple 'yes' to her question.

"I-I…err… y-yes." She managed to struggle out.

"Good. Let's go." Sylvia said as she headed towards Octavia's door, "By the way, that tunic looks really good on you."

"Th-thanks. You look lovely as well."

…

Out of the room, they headed to the dining room. What Octavia didn't see was the blush receding on Sylvia's face from her comment.

It didn't take long to reach the dining room, and they were greeted by the lord and his family, all sitting in the same seats as yesterday, tucking into their food.

The table was covered in various foods. Each person had a loaf of bread, a plate of various cheeses and fruits and a bowl of either soup or stew. Each of the adults had a goblet of wine, and like before the children had some form of juice.

After the usual greetings, herself and Sylvia sat down in the same spots and started on their meals. A taste test of what was in the bowl told her it was a stew with rabbit, as far as she could tell.

She then started her first massive meal of the day.

…

You could easily tell that you were in a noble household because once the food around you started to diminish, a servant would bring out more for you to eat. As far as she could tell, this was a way to show the household's wealth, and it would be considered an insult if they did not have enough food for a guest.

"So, what do you plan to do today, Octavia?" The lord of the house asked.

Octavia didn't really know. While she needed to reach another of the Lamia villages to continue her pilgrimage, she had no idea where one was. What she needed to do was go to the library. Sylvia had said she would get her access to it, so she would have to check with her when that was possible.

Given all of this, there were only a few other things she thought she could do with her time.

"I think I shall explore the town if that is ok. I wish to visit some of the shops, and maybe buy some supplies for my next trip out of the town."

"Trip out of town? Where are you planning to go?" The lady of the house queried. While they had no relation, it was likely the concern came from her motherly instincts kicking in.

"I am looking for a Lamia village to try and learn more about my race. But first I have to figure out where one is though."

"I see." The lord replied. "I don't recall knowing of any Lamia Villages, but given the time since the race became extinct, it would make sense that they are not known as such. I do believe that we have a record of some abandoned villages in the forest. Many are likely to be recent ones, but there may be a few that were found abandoned and the citizens not seen. Whether they are Lamia or some other race could only be found by visiting the village."

He quickly called over one of the nearby servants.

"Can you tell the record-keeper to gather the maps of villages found abandoned. Ask him to transcribe a copy and bring them to my study once done."

The servant bowed and headed out of the room.

"It may take a while, but this may help with your search."

"Thank you for your assistance, my lord."

As Octavia's stomach became full from the massive breakfast, she looked over to Sylvia, who had been quite quiet throughout the meal. She expected to see that eating her meal was what was keeping her silent, but what she found was Sylvia's food going cold as she looked down staring at the table in a pensive gaze.

Concerned about what was bothering her, Octavia called out to her.

"Sylvia."

The lord and his wife were having a talk between themselves about what they would be doing and so had not noticed Sylvia's predicament.

"Sylvia."

The second call finally broke her out of her trance.

"Wha-. Oh, Octavia. Did you need something?"

"You were staring quite hard at the table there. Is everything ok?"

"Huh. Yes, yes, I'm fine." Turning back to the table, she continued with her now slightly cold stew. "So, you're going out to buy supplies."

"Yes."

"I'm coming with you."

"Oh, err, sure."

With it all now set in stone, everyone finished up their meal and headed off to continue their day. Before they left, Elliot had given Sylvia his piece of bread wrapped in cloth as something to eat on her trip.

With Sylvia at her side, they gathered their things, where Octavia grabbed her bag and poleax, which she strapped to her back. They then headed to the front of the castle and headed out into the town to start their shopping trip.