"Thank you. That would be quite helpful. "
Morgan felt Miach put his hand on her leg. Both hands. Then he began to speak. She didn't recognize the language, but even so, somehow the words seemed to sink into her very flesh and become part of her.
Then the words started to sound familiar. She puzzled mightily as to how that might be so, but before she could begin to figure it out, a strange, sweet sleep crept over her.
She allowed it.
She dreamed.
She watched a mother with her child. The mother kept the child close, speaking to her in the same words that Miach used. A strange, sweet peace surrounded the pair; it was strong enough that it enveloped Morgan as well.
Morgan followed the pair as they wandered through the forest. The underbrush didn't tear at her skin this time. The little girl was with her mother and all was well.
The mother left the girl at the edge of a clearing. Morgan didn't care for this, and neither did the girl, but the child didn't protest. The mother walked out from under the trees and approached a man. Morgan tried to see more clearly, but she couldn't tell in the end if the man was dressed in black or if it was that he was simply so dark in his soul that he appeared that way.
It didn't matter, though, because he began to speak in some horrible tongue that sounded dark and void. He stood over a well, raising his hands and speaking loudly and quickly. The longer he went on, the more nervous Morgan became. She wanted to leap forward and stop him, but she could not.
She knew something dreadful was set to happen.
Something she would not be able to stop.
Morgan woke. She woke without moving, as usual, only today there were several things to determine before she gave any sign of being conscious. One was why her leg tingled so abominably. Another was why her hand felt the same way. The third was why she felt so completely unsettled.
She addressed the last first. She considered several alternatives before she realized it had been a dream to leave her so unsettled. She thought on it for quite some time but could remember nothing but a terrible sense of foreboding and a feeling of futility that she could not stop something that needed to be stopped.
She pushed that feeling aside with an effort. No doubt all would return to her at some point and she would face it then. For now, she would deal with easier things.
She wiggled her toes. She felt as if she'd had her leg cut off, but despite the pain it worked quite well. Her hand was another thing entirely. She turned her head ever so slightly to find that that hand was being held in both Miach's own. He was sound asleep, his face peaceful and quite beautiful in repose, and his damned long eyelashes fanned out against his cheek in a manner that was simply wrong. Why was it men had such pretties while women did not?
She debated as to whether or not she should move her hand. What stopped her, primarily, was the fact that she wasn't sure she could. It tingled in a manner that tempted her to cut it off and spare herself any more pain. And she had to admit that there was something unwholesomely comforting about warm hands around her own. As if Miach protected her.
Preposterous, but true.
"You had a nightmare."
She looked at him in surprise, but his eyes were still closed and he gave every appearance of sleeping. And then he opened his eyes and looked at her.
"You were crying out."
"I never cry out."
"It frightened the horses. I had to do something."
"But you don't have to do anything now," she said with a pointed look at his hands around hers.
But as soon as she said the words, she regretted them. Regret made her angry and that led to several curses that she directed at herself, at Miach, and at the fact that now that he had released her hand, it tingled so badly that it felt as if it might fall off her wrist of its own accord.
Miach sat up and dragged his hand through his hair. He yawned hugely, paused, then flopped back against the hay.
"I'll get up tomorrow."
There was hay in his hair. That might have had something to do with the fact that his cloak was covering her, not residing under him where it could have served him. He had comforted her without her even knowing it.
Or deserving it.
She regretted her ungracious words. She wouldn't even have said something that nasty to Glines.
Well, she would have said worse to Glines, but he was accustomed to it. Miach was simply doing her a good turn. He deserved better. She was mustering the courage to tell him so, when memory flooded back.
