Kiri's POV: I awoke and shook my head slightly to clear it from the grey haze that seemed to envelope it, and winced from the pain caused by even that small movement. I had been having a horrible nightmare in which I had been on a raft bobbing up and down in the ocean, and every wave the raft went over jarred my hand, which burned with pain.

I opened my eyes and realized that it hadn't been a dream - well, not precisely. The 'raft' was the back of one of the lower ranked dwarves, who was carrying me through the forest. Looking behind me, I saw another dwarf carrying a bloody corpse - the corpse of a dwarf - slung over his shoulders. Just then the dwarf carrying me noticed the flickering of my eyelids and shouted, "Look! She's awake!"

And that was all that I remembered.

When I woke up next everything was quiet and peaceful, and I could hear birds singing.

Then everything from before rushed back at me and I remembered all that had happened.

I looked at my hand, and realized with horror that it was a mess of splintered bones, shredded skin, and dried blood. I understood that I would never be able to use it again, but for the meantime, I needed to bandage it so that I wouldn't lose any more blood.

And so I did, and set off through the forest, to wherever my legs would go.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Thanks to Angelstar1234567 for your review. It really did a lot for my self- esteem.