'You must be imagining things. That can't be the exact same person.'

I focused my vision, taking in her sharp, earthly and yet alien features. It couldn't be.

'Aheh...well, you did just get a concussion. Anytime now you're going to wake up in the hospital...'

She smiled again, a matronly, amused, knowing, smile. I didn't like the look in her eyes. That mysterious bruise on my chest throbbed as my heart jumped. I didn't want to believe it.

"I don't suppose you know me. But I know much about you, Victoria." She intoned in her foreign accent. I briefly wondered what sort of language her race originally spoke.

'OH MY GOD SHE KNOWS YOUR NAME!'

"I am-"

'Please don't be what I think it is.'

"The seer."

'Holy lovechild of raptorjesus and the great flying spaghetti monster...'

My eyes went wide, and I was internally freaking out. I would have probably had a heart attack.

What I would have really wanted to say was something along the lines of unintelligible screaming, but instead, I took a deep breath, and came out with:

"Do...do you have a name?" I weakly inquired.

'Wow. That was LAME! Why would you say something like that at a time like this!'

She chuckled. "My name is of no concern to you." She stood from her kneeling position, and walked behind me, dead leaves and forest debris crunching beneath her oddly formed feet. "But enough about that. Can you sit up?"

"I dunno." I mumbled, and tried to pull myself up. I was hit with a sudden vertigo, and immediately flopped back down onto the makeshift bed. I closed my eyes against the headache and the world's refusal to stop spinning. I felt my stomach threaten to crawl up my throat.

She chuckled again. "That's a no then. You should be recovered in a few hours, tomorrow at worst."

I heard the sudden rush of flames bursting into life, noisily consuming whatever was in it's grasp. I didn't know she could summon flame... "Although you can not stay here for very long. So whatever it is you like to do to speed up the healing process, I recommend you do it."

I inwardly groaned at the thought of more walking and/or running. I'd had enough of traveling.

'Heck, by now you've probably used all of your frequent flyer miles and then some...'

"What's going on? What's after me?" I murmured, curious.

"What are you babbling about now?" Someone snapped groggily from behind me. I flinched as I realized this wasn't the seer I was talking to. I carefully rolled onto my back, and surveyed the area. She was gone. I was apparently in a makeshift camp of some sort.

"Huh. That's odd. I didn't think the fire would make it through the night..." There was a young woman, probably a few years older than me, across the fire from me. She looked vaguely familiar.

"Oh hey, you're awake." She observed in the middle of a yawn. "You kept on talking in your sleep."

I felt rather embarrassed. I never really talked in my sleep before.

"Wha...did I... say anything weird?"

'Oh god, I hope I didn't start giving away my personal thoughts. But then again if I did, she might have either killed me or run off by now...'

She stretched, popping several joints, before standing up from the tree she had been resting against. "Not really. Unless you count mumbling in ancient tongues as weird."

'Oh shit. This is really going off the effing rocker for me.'

"But I suppose a concussion can do that to you. How are you? Can you move?" She asked, making her way toward me.

"I'm as good as I can be at the moment." I vocally shrugged.

"Shit?" She bluntly asked.

"What?" My mind kind of flopped over, presented with this bizarre idea of the word 'shit' being posed as a valid question.

"You feel like shit, right?" She elaborated, rather frankly.

'Oh.' "Yeah." I sighed. I closed my eyes again. I just wanted to sleep. Preferably without getting killed in my dreams. I was still kind of ashamed of my stupidity. I had flinched, and they saw me. I idly wondered what the heck those things were. I wasn't able to distinguish a face, or anything else useful from the memory.

I was jolted out of my doze by a sudden sharp pain on my forehead. I tried to close my eyes again, but it continued. I eventually couldn't stand it, and looked up, thinking that maybe I was being pelted with acorns by a disgruntled squirrel. The woman was sitting next to me, flicking my head.

"Don't fall asleep. We have to get moving soon." She smiled.

I quirked an eyebrow. "Who are you? I feel like I should know you."

She shook her head, still smirking. "My apologies. If I had remembered where I had put my ration of manners, I would have suggested we deal with pleasantries, nay? I am Adonathiel, inamorata of the chimerical prognosticators, crafter of fine phylactery, and hunter of the malevolent and clandestine. I also moonlight as the fly on the wall. Pleased to meet you, miss...?"

I just lay there, gaping like a suffocating fish.

'OHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHIT-'

This can't be it. It just can't.

"Are you okay?"

My mind was racing. I scrounged up an answer. "I'm Vi- uh, um ...Andraste." I fumbled lamely, pulling out a random name from my memory. Good enough, I suppose.

'OH MY GOD. WHAT THE HELL. I'm dead. I died. Now my mind is in it's last death throes, giving me the hallucination of a lifetime. Yep. My brain DID fall out of my skull. Nice knowing you. Victoria has left the building.'

I was still dumbstruck, staring at her smiling face. She DID fit the bill. Long, tightly curled hair tumbled about her shoulders and back, in a deep shimmering copper. Rich green cloak, dirtied from frequent use in the outdoors, with a VERY familiar pin to hold it about her shoulders. A knee-length red skirt, pinned up on one side to create a rippled curtain effect (as well as allowing more freedom of movement), with dark brown leggings underneath. A short-sleeved soft leather top, with decorative patterns pressed into the collar. She wore no shoes or footwear of any kind. Her face was soft and kind, but that maddened grin was rather unnerving.

This was one of my characters.

She nodded and smirked with that 'yeah, sure' kind of look. I was never a good liar. Not only that, but if she's the same Adonathiel, then she already at the very least has an inkling of who I am. And what I am.

She leaned over my head and dragged over a small bag, it's contents making any number of interesting sounds. I think there might have been a small animal in there.

"It's not often that people end up coming through..." She idly remarked, rummaging through the sack.

"Through where?" I had a shit-ton of questions, most of them cliched, some of them ridiculous, and about three perfectly rational ones.

"The valley. Some strange things have been coming from there lately. All manner of demons and odd creatures." She grinned as she pulled an amulet from her bag. "Imagine my surprise when a flying serpent crashed into my woods, with you in it's claws. Here. Put this on, and you'll be alright until we can find another place to stay."

I took the elaborate disk in my hands, and suspiciously examined it. It looked absolutely frightening, the face of a snarling...creature leering out of the back bordered by arcane symbols, as the other side was delicately carved into several rings of complex, and possibly ancient scriptures. Artistically speaking, it was an absolutely stunning composition. Museums would kill for these kinds of things. But knowing that it was magically imbued, and what this woman was capable of, is what made me hesitant to hang the amulet around my throat.

'If she's the same woman that you wrote about, she wouldn't kill you. She may be a little weird, but she isn't into backstabbing like that. I haven't given her a reason to hate you yet.'

She huffed, noticing my intense scrutiny of the amulet. "Just put it on. It's not going to kill you. I may seem strange, but I don't get my jollies from tricking innocent people. You haven't given me a reason to hate you yet."

Wide eyed and seriously freaked out, I slipped the chain over my head without further hesitation.

She grinned. "Good. I thought I might have to knock some sense into you."

'Oh my god...'