Even my footsteps sound different, she thought. It made sense; the feet of her presently occupied body were not only smaller, but shod with leather clogs of a curious design. Aside from the appropriately elfin pointed toes, the shoes' soles smoothly curved upward; and as she walked, the only noise her steps made was the muffled pat of the heels meeting the rock floor.
Presumably, her steps had always sounded a little different, ever since she arrived in Midworld. It was only now, with the stone walls of the passage echoing every little sound, that she was aware of it. The stillness of the underground tunnel, empty of distractions, was almost forcing her to notice details she usually overlooked.
The fire she carried, for instance. In her left hand was a hollowed-out beest horn, half filled with olive oil and a longish strand of unspun wool for a wick. The scent of the oil as it burned away was subtle, earthy—maybe not pleasant exactly, but it certainly didn't give her a headache the way her grandma's old kerosene lamp did.
Eventually, though, Robin ran out of things to notice, and had no choice but to admit—to herself, if no one else—how scared she was. With every step forward, she worried about what might happen when she finally encountered this "Great Salamander," and what he might look like. That is, if he looked like anything at all. Surely someone with enough secret knowledge could weave a spell or two; in that case, he might know the words to change his shape, or to become invisible.
Her fears at first subsided when, after what felt like hours of walking, she came to a solid wall of craggy stone—a dead end. Initially relieved that she didn't have to continue down the echoing tunnel any further, Robin's relief soon gave way to a worry that she had missed a side passage branching off somewhere. The flickering lamplight made the rock before her seem to move, and a tiny chill went up her back.
Then one of the larger outcroppings of stone opened to reveal a shiny, yellowish-brown eye...