It has been fifteen years since Delia, Lady of Eldorne, has seen this many people. Fifteen years. Fifteen years of imprisonment, first in Corus' prisons and then in a succession of isolated castles and fortified manors. Fifteen years of either complete isolation except for the guards who would bring her her meals, or the household of her custodians. Occasionally, she saw towns, but only on a brief travel from one residence to another. Once, her prison castle had to host terrified villagers fleeing a monster, but there had not been any more than fifty.

Fifteen years, and the last time she saw a large number of people outside was at her trial.

This?

These strange docks, with all these strange people? When she's stand there in a blue dress so simple it functions better as an undergarment? When there is light after so long only seeing the sun through a window, and so many sounds and scents and images?

Delia is clutching the map and the strange device to her, and is trying very hard not to have a screaming fit.

Once she's found the little house assigned to her, and gone to her bed for several hours to recover, Delia is starting to feel better. Or at least, she's starting to feel a little more put together, so that her pride has been stung enough to maybe not hide. It would be so easy to hide, after all.

Too easy, in fact. It takes her another day for her to summon the pride and self-contempt to face going outside.

Discovering that the closet has more garments for her, she picks a green dress that makes her feel somewhat like her old self again. Like a lady, rather than a prisoner. Rebraiding her brown hair to a neat coronet, she gathers her courage and walks out into the streets.

She has the freedom to, potentially, do as she pleases. And what pleases her is to go for a walk, unwatched by guards and unhindered by walls, and to maybe find an inn in which to eat.

Freedom is, though, a little terrifying, so Delia is not walking particularly fast.

Or maybe she's just used to stretching out her activities as long as she can, so she can fill the long empty hours.