Then back to scrubbing with her nails. 

This method works, without even bleaching the dress, though the blood behaves sort of strangely. Instead of most of it coming out and leaving a faint stain that is eventually scrubbed away, it lingers for a little while, then it all comes out at once. It's rather like a mooching houseguest that storms off in a huff when their beleaguered host finally puts their foot down.

...well then. 

Time to do the dishes, she supposes.

The dishes are hardly even dirty, really. They clean easily enough.

Hm. She needs to hang up her dress to dry, but there is rather a shortage of line. She supposes she’ll drape it over the stair railing for now. 

She goes and retrieves the grey scarf while she’s at it: might as well get the mud and blood out of it as well. 

It goes about the same as with the dress; mud is removed fairly easily and blood takes just as much work and application of vinegar. It's still surprisingly easy, though, as these things go.

She smiles - then winces, as the cuts in her hands suddenly twinge. She looks at her hands, still wrapped in improvised bandage, now soaked with - 

Now soaked with vinegar. 

She yanks the bandages off as quickly as she can, but her own carefully-tied knots delay her. By the end, she’s hissing her breaths in through clenched teeth.

A hasty splash of water from the jug washes away most of the sting, but there are still tears standing out at the corners of her eyes. She sits down on the bed, presses her hands between her legs, and does her best to think about other things for a while.

... alright, she needs to rebandage her hands again. She retrieves another pair of scarves from the box in the bottom of the armoire, ties them neatly around her palms, then goes and puts the newly-cleaned scarf over the railing.

Well. There are an awful lot of things to do, but very few of them can be done without leaving her apartment. 

For lack of a better option, she gets out one of the cookbooks and starts leafing through it. Perhaps it’ll help her identify the contents of her spice cupboard.

There are a few ideas for cooking in here, and maybe a few she could even make with her very meager supplies, devoid of both salt and flour, but nothing referring to any of the strange shadow spices in her cupboard. That might be a task that requires a specialized book; this one's more about creative ways to use vegetables.

Hm. It seems the books haven’t changed as much as the spices have. She puts it back, and continues to the next one, just in case.

A book on baking! There are many spices listed here, but each one is perfectly ordinary. Nothing on how to identify the contents of her unique spice cupboard.

She’s getting the distinct impression that this is the kind of problem that will only yield to experience.

Well then. 

...she really has nothing better to do, so...

She smiles slightly to herself, and curls back up in bed with another of the previous librarian’s books.

This one is a story about a dragon. A baby green dragon, lost, confused, alone, and eventually, hunted. Constantly on the run, because according to everyone she meets, she's doomed to be evil because she doesn't happen to be metallic. In the beginning, she's understandably bitter, as she scrapes by in the woods and lives off of animals. Chapters are devoted to her rage, her perfectly intelligible anger at the cruel injustice of the world. She can't take her anger out on anything that'll draw attention to herself, so she instead aggressively arranges her environment to suit her needs, hidden in an out of the way cave that's more of a hole in the ground than a proper dragon's lair. Slowly, the fear of hunters fades, and the world she builds becomes something resembling comfortable.

Eventually, she is brave enough to venture out, and watches families of humans, happy families, from afar. Her anger fades to jealousy, of other people having something she can't ever have again. It was stolen from her, or at least, that's what she tells herself at first. However, this dragon has more than an ounce of self awareness. She watches these humans, and one day she abruptly realizes—no. This was not stolen from her, or if it was, it was stolen from her by her parents. They weren't kind. She lost herself a set of guardians, which put her in a horribly awkward position, but... well. Maybe it wasn't all bad. There are many things she likes about this new life she's made for herself. Her jealousy fades to sorrow.

It soon becomes clear that she's lonely. Eventually, she even admits it to herself. She considers ways she can solve this, and carefully, fearfully, sneaks her way back to her old home to see if it contains any spells that will solve her problem. There is no dramatic confrontation of adventurers that were waiting for her return; it's clear that they have long since stopped caring. Instead it's just a cave, picked nearly clean of valuables. An empty shell. It feels very different, after years away and her new perspective. Once, she would have wanted to move back in, or been angry at the loss. Now, she's not angry, she's just... sad. Carefully, she picks through it all, scrapes together what notes on spellwork that she can find, and leaves the grave to its rest. She does not try to find the bodies of her parents. She doesn't want to see them.

Her life as a hermit continues with a new element; spellwork. She's working from scraps and dredges, but she's brilliant, and she has ever so much time. All she needs is stubbornness and patience, and to her mind, all those take is practice. She learns magic, practices it in secret, sharpens her mind like it's a blade and wields it with terrifying precision. Eventually, after lights and illusions and false sounds and fire, she finally, finally figures out the thing she'd wanted all along. Shapeshifting.

She shifts to a human shape with green eyes the color of her scales, because she's not ashamed. They won't know what it means, but she will. Maybe eventually she'll tell them, and show them who she is. Her hands shake as she gathers up her spellbook, but if they think her a monster, then, well. They're wrong.

The book ends on her walking into town, greeted with a warm wave and a bright hello.

... well, that was. Certainly a book. 

Who put you up to this, she wonders.

She rubs an eye with the back of one wrist, and finds it comes away wet. 

Oh. 

She smiles slightly to herself, pats the book gently, and carefully puts it away back in its proper place. 

Then she curls up, and goes to sleep.

Her apartment is quiet and still.

In the morning, all is as she left it.

She tiptoes out to see if her dress has dried.

It has! It's slightly chilly, but the fabric is smooth and soft and, mostly importantly, perfectly dry.

She slips it back on. 

There. Much more proper.

Now - 

These coins belong in the witch’s cabin. She takes them out with her into the alley, checking on the tables in the front room as she goes.

The tables seem to have dried from their foray from the rain, but the rot's paused in its healing. It hasn't worsened, but it hasn't gotten better, either.

In the alley, the faintest hint of omnipresent whispers is a little louder than before.

"—it's hardly fair, that there isn't a king for the other side."

  "What, and invite in the opponent? Already? That wouldn't be a very clever thing to do at all."

She pauses, stock-still.

She listens. 

If she quiets her breaths and strains, she can just make out the words, drifting down from the courtyard.

"No, I suppose not, the witch would hardly be very clever if she invited a guest like that so early—"

  "Witch? Witch? Are you blind? She's not a witch. The witchplace is for itself, not for her."

"I don't know what else to call her, she's hardly a queen, not yet."

  "It's rude to assume. Wait for her to introduce herself, if she wants to."

She half-smiles, and curtseys.

^{“It’s also rude to gossip.”}