[b]Miriam
Chapter 17: Dreams of Home[/b]

"What in the name of..." Miriam found the words oddly familiar in her mouth. She peeked out from her hiding spot upon the charred wasteland before her, trees were still crackling with sparks and embers, the dry moss on the rocks had all but been evaporated, as had any sign of the troll that had assailed them. The forest looked so different and the sensation it carried was also different, as if the entire forest had been altered by this immense power surge. Miriam warily climbed down from her rock and landed on the crispy ground, she felt lighter somehow as well and she had a smile on her face when calling out to the knight she could not see. "What is the DEAL with you two?! Wow-eehe!" She laughed and looked to the crevice where she assumed the knight would be. She was right. "Oh... Crud." Her tunic was splattered as if by paint, as was her face and hair. She was entirely drenched in blood and she lay completely incapacitated on the ashen ground, head fallen against the rock behind her. The air around her still seemed to sizzle with some magical energy. Miriam quickly drew in and gently tried to rouse the knight. "H-Hey... Uh, well. Good job! You awake?!" There was no response and the knight's head only slumped forward instead. Miriam gulped. "Damnit... Please don't be dead." She pleaded and then brought her head forward, she tilted it and pressed her ear against the knight's chest, listening intently for a few seconds. She then leaned back, relieved to have heard a heartbeat, if a faint one. "Oh, thank you!" Miriam drew a sigh of relief and sat down with her legs folded beneath her. "What a day..." She groaned and absently huffed a breath up at her black bangs. "Can't say that wasn't entertaining." She added, in a bit of a mad cackle.

	"You... are heavier than you look." Miriam complained, she dropped the unconscious knight against the moss-covered tree, she then quickly fixed it so the woman was covered by her cloak, there wasn't anymore bleeding but she had already lost enough blood and was close enough to being dead. There would be no moving for some time at least. Miriam adjusted the knight's resting pose. She wiped away some of the blood covering the woman with her sleeve, she had no water to use so this would have to do. She doubted the knight really cared if she was blood-splattered, should be happy to be alive. Miriam sat herself down next to the woman she still didn't know the name of and a thought seemed to come to her, as a voice in the back of her head.
	"You could just leave her." It suggested. Miriam looked around the forest. She then shook her head. "Who would blame you?" The voice in her head continued. "You could just say she was slain by the troll, no one would ever know." Miriam pursed her lips, she didn't like how articulate her head voices were, they had never been so malicious before either. "Miriam. If you stay here, you'll both die... This is for the best." The voice said again.
	"Screw you, Head voice." Miriam muttered. And then it was silent, just like that. Miriam looked back to the knight where she lay and she figured she had to prove the head voice wrong. She was going to help this person. Why she had become such a compassionate person as of late she would never realize, but she kind of liked helping. It brought up a new feeling which seemed to make her warmer inside, a feeling that she enjoyed. She got it again now when looking at the Knight woman. Miriam cracked a smile for herself and adjusted her seat slightly. The air was chilly, even more so now without her cloak but she had suffered worse, especially when she was little. Miriam was quite confused with herself but the pictures just seemed to come to her: North, even more North than any person really ought to go, least of all live. There was a cabin halfway up the mountain, smoke rose from the small home's chimney from a fire that burned inside a large hearth. Around the hearth three people sat. A small girl with pitch black hair, uncombed and unwashed. Next to her sat an older boy, he was muscular and held the little girl close to his chest. Finally there was a woman, she wore a thick sweater and held a poking stick, which she often used to rouse the embers of the fire. Miriam smiled to herself again, she felt her eyes well with the beginning of tears and she sniffled once in happy thought.
	"How quaint." The Head voice spoke up again, and Miriam's own memories now erupted. The hearth she had imagined exploded in an inferno not unlike what she had just witnessed and the three people around it were encircled and swiftly enveloped by the madly raging fire. Miriam then saw the cabin, as she had before but now it was a massive bonfire rather than a home, the flames cracked and whipped against the sky and before long, the house on the mountain was no more. 
	"Stop. Stop!" Miriam cried out, she held her hands over her head and balled her legs up, she shut her eyes in a desperate attempt to block out this vision but to no avail as the snippets of pictures came to her still. The house was no more, it was only a bundle of burnt logs and ashen stone. One pile of timber shifted, it buckled and gave way, a small hand crawled through the rubble and the little girl pushed her way out, she looked around, eyes glossy with her welling tears. "Please stop..." Miriam whimpered. She saw the girl crawl up, her wooly sweater had been singed by the fire but the girl was miraculously mostly unharmed. The girl shouted but there was no sound coming from her mouth, she cried the names of those who had sat next to her and then she waited. Her tears fell over her sooty face and her hair was smokey black, just as it had been before. Miriam promptly shoved herself to her feet, she buckled and wobbled but she stood. The vision ended, there was no more to come, just the sound of her head voice, ringing a hollow, concise laugh. Miriam fell back to her knees, she looked at her hands and she began to sob uncontrollably.