[b]Miriam
Chapter 25: A long way to go[/b]

Miriam walked slowly through the forest, the snow was heavy beneath her feet and crunched as she stepped across it. She had had to stop often, her breathing was rapid and she often paused to wince and curse at the infernal pain of her arm. It was back in its original place but that only meant pain for her at this point. A raw and blatant aching of every nerve of her arm, it was strained and the constant pain wore her down into a sorry state. Miriam could not hunt in this state, as she walked she found frogs frozen and hibernating beneath logs, and she found eggs in nests low enough to pick. This sustained her for a few days as she walked but it did so barely, following the directions of the stars and the sun as she traveled further north. She could not risk going back south, the undead hunters must have been made aware of what had happened now. Miriam found herself concerned with what had become of the person she... performed her magic upon. She still had a hard time believing she had done it at all, it seemed like a lucid dream now. Maybe it was. - She found herself thinking about the panicked look in his eyes, the fear that had come over him as the magic had stopped his every muscle. Miriam did not need to imagine that fear, or that pain, she knew it already.

Leia came often when Miriam was resting against a tree or a stone with a dead squirrel or some other creature in her maw which she dropped in front of her wounded partner with a happy pant and a proud wag of her bushy tail. With due effort and only a operational hand Miriam made up a fire every night, by which she cooked her meals, warmed herself and slept. It warded off whatever animals lived in this sparse forest, she hadn't seen anything but birds and small beast. This close to the western shoreline the wilds were less ferocious, peaceful even and Miriam doubted she would come across anything more dangerous than wild boar.

A few days passed like this, in silent wandering through a peaceful and white forest. Miriam's thoughts left threats and magic and instead she came to think of the people she had left behind, the possibilities. If she had stayed with Freda, if she had taken her offer, what would have happened then? What had happened with Ellie? Didn't she say she would ensure she was safe? What had become of Lowburg and Anathema? Miriam found she depressed herself with these thoughts and tried to think of other things, but the weight of the past was still heavy on her mind. Every time she found herself thinking about these things she shook it off as sentimental and useless. With a determined scowl she carried on, forward and onward. 

Eventually she found a path in the woods, the path surely lead out and eventually became a road, the road changed from dirt, to gravel and eventually it became paved with stone. Miriam looked down it, then up, Leia stood by her side, the dog had not left her side for the day and now walked by her side with less of a defensive air and more of her usual calm gait. Miriam walked down the road and as she did a memory came back to her, one she hadn't thought of for a very long time: She'd been here before, she had walked this road but to the other direction, a frail and lost child she had been, whose only possessions were what she carried with her. A singed scarf lay around the miserable child's neck, it had belonged to her mother once. Next to her there had been a man, he was a mountaineer, he had seen the fire and came to help. It had been too late to save anyone from the fire, but under the rubble had had found her, miraculously unscathed from the firestorm with not a scratch or a burn on her soot-covered body, and he had taken her away to his own home. The scarf was all that had been saved from the remains. Miriam touched an absent hand to her scarf and clung to it. It wasn't the same, this had been given to her by Freda, she knew that. With an anxious sigh Miriam stopped on the road and looked back again, Leia stopped and glanced back to Miriam who hesitantly chose not to move.
	"I'm scared, Leia." Said Miriam, before she could think of a reason she had said it aloud at all. Leia barked and came trotting over back to her master, letting out a happy pant as she circled her once. Miriam looked down at the pooch and sighed.
	"Okay... Let's go see him." She turned and walked up the road, in the far distance mountains began to stretch into the cloudy sky. Their white peaks reaching far beyond the clouds themselves, stretching endlessly to the sky above as if hoping they could all become one at last.