[b]Miriam
Chapter 14: Patience, the lamest of virtues[/b]

Determination, Miriam concluded was the emotion that best fit a Spirit-Walker, and Ellie was full of it. Miriam had also considered faith, compassion and foolishness as candidates but after thinking about it for the last fifteen minutes or so; determination did seem to be the most appropriate. At least for Ellie, whom had simply sat there in some sort of trance this entire time. Miriam sat in front of the Spirit-Walker with crossed legs, leaning onto her own hands, Leia sat next to her, panting in happy idleness. They both watched Ellie and her oddly glowing eyes. She seemed to be strained, Miriam did not bother trying to imagine what the girl was doing that could be so difficult. Something magical, she bet. She just hoped it would be over soon, as it was getting quite cold and dreadfully boring here. Miriam drew her coat closer and shuddered, she glanced away from Eliana and looked at Leia instead, who returned the look with an innocently happy yap.
	"What are you so happy about?" She asked glumly. Leia let out another happy yap and thumped her tail excitedly, Miriam smiled in return and pet the dog. "Yeah, I bet." She then leaned backwards and stretched her back slightly. Directly after this she skipped up unto her feet and began to pace about out of sheer boredom. "What are we even doing, girl?" She asked her non-vocal companion, who again only responded with a happy bark. Miriam scoffed at the response and shook her head. "Figured you'd say that." She complained before growing bored with that conversation as well, electing instead to scan the area. She spun from where they had come, north; seeing the walls of Lowburg on her left and frozen plains of drudgery on her right, Eliana sat closeby on the ground. She then spun East and spotted the wall of trees which signed the beginning of the haunted woods, quiet as their name would imply. She spun south and now saw the walls on her left, the battlefield lay before them and some no doubt strategically genius spiky balls lay closer than that, Miriam rolled her eyes and spun the last direction, west. A wall. "Excitement..." Miriam complained and groaned a sigh, Leia barked and pushed her head under Miriam's hand in demand of a pet. Miriam instinctively scratched the dog behind a shabby ear and struck a glum pout. After a moment of standing in the chilly climate she shuddered again and looked skywards.
	"Walteer!" She shouted out, hoping that the mysterious old man would simply appear with the beckon and bring some excitement with him. Miriam lowered her head and looked around. No response except for the howl of the winter winds. She blinked and looked around again, waiting for him to appear in a dumb silence. After realizing the futility of her actions Miriam sighed and sunk back onto the ground with her legs crossed. She rested her chin on a propped up hand and looked back at Ellie in front of her where she sat in her strained coma. The girl twitched her shoulder often and Miriam wondered what had hurt her so. Could it have been whatever attacked her earlier as well? Probably not, since she wasn't suffering any pain of her own like that. She chalked it up to magic nonsense and moved on in her thoughts. She swung her bag around and opened its main flap to rummage through its contents. Then she remembered that most of her loot was still in Anathema's store. 
	"Uuugh." Miriam groaned and flopped her face unto the mostly empty bag in deprivation. 

Time seemed to stand still, Miriam looked up at the bleak gray sky above them, it looked as if it was promising snow soon. 
	"Hurray.." Miriam muttered and shifted from where she lay with her back against her backpack. She looked up at the wooden walls of Lowburg, noticing something new, she narrowed her eyes. It was slim, dark and human? A person who was standing on the palisades. Presumably a guard, maybe he was going to take them for Raylians and shoot at them. Miriam wasn't awfully concerned, they were out of bow's reach here. She assumed, and it was not as if any troops would be out this way. Miriam scrambled up which roused the dozing Leia, Ellie remained comatose and boring. For a minute the huntress searched for an item in her bag, she produced the slender looking glass and then propped the nifty mechanism up against her eye to peer through its octagonal glass. She could get a proper eye on the walls now and she scanned across them to try and find the person she had seen before with her now zoomed in vision. Wooden walls and gray houses behind them, nothing of interest until... There. It was definitely a person. A figure at least. Didn't look like a guard but it did look somewhat familiar. Miriam twisted the center screw on the looking-glass and the vision became more focused. She looked through it again towards the figure she had seen. A few moments later she lowered the glass and for a moment looked around in grave silence. She then broke it with emphasized annoyance. 
	"Shit."