There was a field, awash with high noon sunlight and a sprightly breeze. Tall grass swayed in tandem with vivid leaves, ushering a gentle rustling across the area. White clouds drifted lazily along the careless blue sky, never impeding the sun's warmth. She stood in the centre, dainty feet nestled comfortably on an earnest little stump. Her body was light, airy almost. There were forest animals gathered around her, completely relaxed and unafraid. Soothed, almost. She realised she was singing. Long, melodious notes that carried on the winds, fitted with the harmony of the place. The animals watched her, transfixed. Then the sun was blotted out, the warmth almost immediately replaced with a bitter chill. She stopped singing at the sensation, thought nothing of it. As she attempted to pick up her song where she left it, she croaked. The hollow howl of the wind rose around her. The animals skipped away as if she had vanished. She tried to call out, but there was no sound. In a flash the trees were bare, the field of grass fallow. Dark clouds crowded the sky, swirling dangerously. The winds became a force, holding her on the stump, unable to get off. She tried to scream, but remained silent. Rumbling built up above, flickers of ominous light darted along the silhouettes of clouds. She watched as the bolt of lightning screeched down from the sky, hurtling right towards her. Everything went white. Hannah fell out of bed, landing on the hard wooden floor with a thud. She screamed from the anguish of the fading dream, along with the pain that throbbed along the arm she had landed on. She felt the trickle of tears on her face, an empty whimpering escaping her lips. That was the closest she could get to hearing her voice. Still in her night dress, Hannah left her room, walking into the morning sunlight that slowed through the windows of the corridor. She all but threw herself at the next door, hammering on it vigorously, although in truth the knocking was probably fairly quiet. ----- A young man sat in a lonely inn's chamber, with naught but the scratching sound of his own writing to keep him company. He wrote out a few sentences, stopped, crossed them out, then began anew. How was he to explain the things that had happened to him thus far? He had thought that writing a letter to his father--or at least, the closest thing he had to one--would be a good idea, but events had unfolded in such a way that he struggled to summarize them satisfactorily. Then he heard a dull thump from outside, followed by rapping at the door. Curious, he--a tactician known as Noah Garod--rose and opened the door. When he did so he found himself looking at a quite distressed young lady. "Hannah?" He asked, inspecting her. "What's..." he cut himself off. She hadn't even changed... whatever it was, it clearly wasn't pleasant. He opened the door further, offering her entrance. "Do you need to come in? What's wrong?" ----- "..." Here came the predicament. How could she convey what had happened? The door had been opened further, so she stepped silently inside, wiping her face dry of tears with her hands. She couldn't even really use her harp this time: how exactly could you tell someone about a dream without -telling- them about it? She walked further into his room, soon seeing his works on the desk, along with an ink quill. She didn't think she could write out her dream either, even though Noah had shown her the basics. There must have been another way... Feeling rather embarrassed, Hannah stood in the middle of his room, her hands idle by her side. She stared blankly at him, unsure of how to progress from here. ----- Noah took a closer look at her as she quietly recollected herself. Hannah had no voice, quite literally; and she still wasn't good enough with a pen yet to convey complex stories. As such, he immediately began to piece together what he could of her from her appearance and behavior. She had been distraught when she knocked on his door; the reddened eyes and the tears she'd been drying could attest to that. However, he could see no visible injuries on her, nor did she now look quite so out of sorts; rather, she looked more bemused than anything, which told him that whatever peril she had been facing was of a transient variety. Further, he had heard no loud noises before her appearance, so it was exceedingly unlikely that this had been caused by the actions of an intruder. Plus, it was still early morning, and she'd not yet changed from her sleeping clothes. Probably, there would have been no outside impetus for this tearful visit, if only because of the lack of time... That left the possibility of less visible ailments like sickness and inner turmoil, which was more difficult to hypothesize on. Perhaps he had dredged up old memories from her days as a performer; she certainly was far less merry now than she was in the world of his memory. Wordlessly, he riffled around his possessions and located a handkerchief. "Here," he offered, raising it to her. "Are you sick? Or... bad memories...?" He trailed off and left the question open, hanging patiently in the cool air. ----- Hannah took the handkerchief and held it to her slightly damp face, blotting away the path her tears had left. To his question, she shook her head slowly, holding the small piece of cloth to her lips for comfort. She pulled away locks of her hair that had clung to the sides of her face. She didn't spend much time on it anyway, not anymore, but she had just jumped out of bed, and her cheeks flushed a fresh shade of red. Her gaze turned again to Noah's desk, a slow realisation forming in her head. she approached the table, giving him a quizzical glance before perching herself on the seat. She grabbed the quill and held it to a blank piece of paper. It was difficult against the scratching of the writing instrument, but Hannah started to draw out her dream. She didn't look up at his again until she had drawn a crude representation of herself singing to tiny blotches of ink with ears. She made sure to draw notes emerging from her open mouth. When he seemed to not fully grasp what she had drawn, she pointed at his bed. ----- It took the tactician a moment to fully connect what she was showing to him. The picture depicted a figure... singing? Then she pointed to his bed... "Bad dreams?" He finally asked, frowning. He wasn't entirely certain he could do much about that. Still, he couldn't let it be as it was... "I don't know exactly what you saw," he said carefully, "but it's over now. You're safe. For what it's worth." ----- She nodded at the question. When she saw the flash of abruptness on his face, she too felt the futility of her visit. Hannah suddenly felt very small. At his next words, she turned solemn, bowing her head as her hair fell in a curtain around her face. These dreams... They're torture. Hannah reached for the quill once more. "I...mis.... Singin" ----- Noah grimaced as she wrote. It must have been hard. Now she looked despondent, gloomy and ghoulish in demeanor. Whatever had happened to take her voice, it had clearly stolen all vivacity from her as well. So, after a small silence, he finally spoke, with conviction from a source he could not place. "I know. We'll get it back." He knew not how, where or when. But he had every intention to pursue this until it was done. ----- The strength of his tone... It seemed to flow across the room. A little of it tingled in her chest. The quill fell quietly from her hand, resting softly on the parchment, the feathered end concealing the crude animal blotches she had drawn... Until her hand skitted for the quill once more. The nib was running dry, but she scratched the word into the parchment. 'Hope' Like the feeling, the words were faded, premature, shaky.It was something she hadn't felt in a long time. There was something about Noah that she found herself trusting. Since the ordeal, Hannah had been wandering, lost in a sea of self loathing, of defeat and despair. Now it seemed that she might have finally found her guiding light. The muted bard stood from the desk, pulling her hair from her face once more to reveal perhaps the most genuine smile she had worn for a very long time. It wasn't strong, but it was real. She felt the glower in her eyes: the smallest of sparks had been reignited in her soul.
