You may yet

Lei opened one eye carefully, peered around the empty room and inspected it.  There was a cheerful fire built in the hearth, she noted gratefully.  There was not much furniture besides the couch that she was laying on, just a table and a few chairs, and enough décor to keep the small room from looking bare.  She promptly closed her eye again.

A few minutes later, Lei heard someone enter the room, along with a most tantalizing smell: breakfast.  She opened both eyes this time, and sat up in her makeshift bed.  A short, gnarled old man had come in, precariously balancing two bowls of porridge on a tray.

Hastily, Lei struggled to untangle her lanky legs from the blanket and stand.  Once she did, however, she bumped her head against the low roof and promptly fell right back down.  Meanwhile, the man set down the bowls and turned to Lei, offering her his hand.

Red-faced, Lei accepted the proffered hand with a mumbled “Thank you” and quickly sat in one of the chairs.  The old man seated himself in the other chair.  “Feel free to start eating,” he said with a chuckle: Lei was already eating ravenously.

“So,” the old man said quietly, after a while.  “What brings the young princess to these parts?”  Startled, Lei dropped her spoon with a clatter.  He winked at her cheerfully.  “You’ve been getting a bit of a reputation, you know,” he continued.  “The people love you: not for your heritage, but for your kind deeds.”  Lei placed her hands in her lap and stared at them self-consciously.  The old man laughed.  “And in the beginning it was said you would never amount to anything.”  He studied her face, half-joking, half-serious.  “You may yet,” he said quietly.  “You may yet.”