Miiri's Story: In which a young mother finds her way home at long last.

"And so Daax raced from the burning wagon, clutching Haakor's son - her own body's gift to him - to her breast. The flames burst out in a great ball, destroying the last of the raiders, sending vile Torval to his well-deserved end. But Daax struggled on, across the wastes, spending the last of her strength, the remaining life within her, to return to the Fortress of Gaath."

The whole room was rapt as the storyteller brought the tale to a close. She moved with assured poise amongst the coloured scented lamps of the gathering tent, drawing her listeners with her as she replayed the heroine's desperate valour on her long trek home.

"At the familiar gates she stumbled once, but she never let young Haavax fall. At the doors of the Clan Hall she faltered, her vision blurring. But still she pressed on, step by painful step, leaving a trail of her life's blood as she walked to the throne of Lord Haakor. She lifted the babe to his arms, folded Haavax safe into her Master's saffron cloak. 'Here is your heir,' she told her master. 'I have done my duty'."

"And there it was she died, faithful Daax, her purpose fulfilled at last, her honour restored, her Master's offspring saved."

Ekooria bowed her head and covered it with her veil to show that the tale was done.

The great crowd was silent for a moment, then burst into loud applause. Brave warriors wiped tears from their eyes as they clapped their hands and stamped their feet. The women present jangled their bells as a sign of approval.

Far from the main area, in the cushioned alcove where the girl children were cared for, Miiri sat amongst the nymphs and watched with wide eyes as Prince Kiivas himself rose to congratulate her mother on her skills. he embraced Ekooria before all the people, and great was her honour.

Miiri would always remember her mother as she looked at that moment. She would always remember the tale she heard that day.

Miiri stood on the landing, her crimson cloak plastered to her frame, dripping wet from the downpour lashing the seaside lighthouse's exterior. The old house was quiet, save for the windswept rain on the roof and windows. It was not a threatening sound, but rather one that only served to insulate the interior. She was aware for the first time how much the building had transformed since the first time she had entered it, the very day she had first told him about her pregnancy. It now radiated something that she found so unfamiliar that it shocked and saddened her when she finally recognized what it was she was feeling from the plaster, wood, stone and metal that surrounded her. This was a home now... a concept that she had not experienced herself for more years than she could count. This was no slave pen, nor merely living quarters, nor even a safe, warm refuge. No, a home was something else entirely...

Visionary's room she recognized easily, pushing her way through the partly open door. The furniture was mismatched, though not terribly so. Worn, but with warm wood-stained finishes, sturdy and reliable, while none of it especially valuable or unique... apparent even to her alien eye. The pieces here could be found in most any furniture store for miles, she had no doubt. The bed with the dark green comforter wasn't the one she remembered, she noted with a sly smile. (It was missing the spot on the headboard where, well... that was another story altogether.) But then, he had lost all of his belongings in a fire before he moved here. A frumpy, stuffed chair (rescued from the attic of the mansion up the beach, no doubt) sat in the corner collecting various diamond adorned, green mock turtlenecks. Small, random items were scattered across the dresser, the contents of pockets waiting for some mythical date where they'd be put into an equallymystical place they belonged. The room was as wholly unremarkable at first glance as the man himself.

If the furnishings were nondescript, however, the walls told another story. Pictures hung in simple frames scattered liberally across the walls with wild abandon. Images of gods and lawyers, robots and waitresses, aliens and bunnies... the variety was nearly comical. Here and there the man himself would appear in a group shot, and she could see a look in his eyes that went far in explaining why he would need no treasures horded in his room. She looked at one image of herself and marveled at the distance she had traveled in such a short time, that she should be included among this eclectic assortment. There were new pictures as well... ones scattered among those of her and Hallie, Sarah and Kerry. Ones that made her heart pound in her chest, and her stomach flutter. Ones that reminded her of the climb ahead. Her eyes flickered over these, not ready yet to drink in the details.

She closed her eyes and inhaled, slowly, and smiled at the memories that wrapped her warmly in the smell of a cheap aftershave. Then she padded back into the hall and gently closed the door behind her.

She wound her way up and around the spiral stairway to the next landing, where a forbidding, black painted door was festooned with signs warning of imminent death to anyone who dared trespass. Multiple smoke detectors lined the hallway, and directly across from the door was mounted an industrial strength fire extinguisher. She had no doubt it was freshly charged that morning, and noted that there had been plenty of time to scrape and carefully repaint the door jam since the last time it was scorched, leaving the room ready and welcome for the return of its owner. Whether that return came today, tomorrow, or sometime further in the future, there was an implicit understanding at work here.

Opening her cloak, she removed a bundle of cloth and unwrapped it, producing a small silver shard. Turning it to face upward, it caught a glint of brilliant green light, reflecting the lighthouse beam back towards the tower above. The people who belonged here tended to find their way back to this house, she noted... no matter how far flung their travels might take them. She trusted that this held true even for the most troublesome of little sisters.

She suddenly was struck by the image of that beam of light shining out across the stars, illuminating a path from her distant past to the here and now. She had been raised to believe in fate and destiny, that everyone had a predetermined place in the world... a role to fill... and all honor was to be found in fulfilling it. Others had introduced her to a different way of thinking... of creating a role, rather than simply accepting one. Her own path had led here, to a role that she had no idea how to fill. It was both terrifying and thrilling, and yet also so very right. Had she created this moment, she wondered wordlessly, twisting the mirror shard in her hand, or had she simply tumbled into it?

Ohanna was by the Fountain of Reflection, watching the ripples fan out past the lily pads. She didn’t look happy.

“If you keep making a face like that the House Mother will make you into an uglydrudge,” Miiri warned as she found her little sister at last.

Ohanna tried to hide her tear-reddened eyes. “I didn’t think…” she blurted. “I thought you wouldn’t come and see me. Before you go.”

Miiri reached out one oiled, scented arm and pulled the gawky child to her. “Why wouldn’t I say goodbye to my favourite sister, hmm?” she asked kindly.

Ohanna resisted for a minute, then clung to her. Even then she was careful not to muss Miiri’s Vina Drea finery, the hours of careful work of the house mother and the senior women to transform the young pleasure slave into the alluring mystery of delight that would go to her Master’s bed. “I don’t want you to go away,” Ohanna blurted.

“But I must,” Miiri warned her. “You know that. There comes a time when every girl must leave her father’s possession and have a Master of her own. Your time will come. My time is here, now, with Prince Aarmus. It is a fine sale, a great transaction for our House.”

Ohanna nodded. “But I won’t see you any more.”

Miiri smoothed the child’s hair back from her blotchy face. Ohanna had the bone structure and complexion of a great beauty, just like her sister. Five years, six maybe, and she too would be ready to be sold to a noble lord. She had a future. “We may see each other again,” she comforted the girl. “Perhaps you will come to the House of Aarixus too, and we will be clan-sisters once more? Maybe our sons will play together in the courtyard beneath the t’grum trees? But no matter what happens or how far away we go, we will never forget each other, will we?”

Ohanna shook her head. “Never,” she promised. She looked at her big sister, trying to store away the memory. “Are you frightened to go to Prince Aarmus?” she asked.

Mirri hesitated. “A little bit,” she confessed at last. “It is an important moment for any girl – any woman – to go to her first Master. But Aarmus is handsome and noble. I think he will be a good Master to me. And he travels even to other worlds, to legendary places like Calipso and Vidius and Frammistat. Maybe he will take me with him when he goes?”

“But you won’t forget me?”

“I will never forget you,” Miiri promised. “We are Ekooria’s daughters, family forever, no matter where destiny takes us. So learn your lessons and uphold the Duties and make me proud. One day I want to tell my own daughters that you are my sister.”

There was a fluttering from behind her, and Miiri turned to find a large black bird perched on the patinaed copper banister of the stairwell. "Ma'am... Welcome home" the raven greeted her nervously with a warm, raspy voice. "I had a feeling that you might arrive tonight, although I didn't share that with the children, for fear of disappointing them if... You see, my sense for the narrative strands of the Parodyverse are not what they once... I mean, ever since being dismissed as one of the Chronicler's Ravens of Destiny, I... I try my best, Ma'am, but sometimes I get things... off." She fluttered slightly as her feathers bristled awkwardly. "Not that I would ever put the children at risk by relying on anything less than cold hard facts, of course..."

Miiri smiled at the small raven. "You're Quoth, correct?"

"Oh! Yes, ma'am. We've met before, briefly during your... ah... when the children were born. Only I was in human form then." She shook her head to clear it. "Yes ma'am, Quoth... appointed governess to the children Naari and Griffin... pending your approval, ma'am."

"You've been dismissed as one of the Chronicler's Ravens?"

The bird swallowed painfully, and stepped from side to side guiltily. "Yes, ma'am... the Shaper of Worlds declared me unfit for destiny. Ma'am."

"Visionary told me the story, you know" Miiri said, looking over the small black figure carefully. "Of how you broke the laws of your office in order to retrieve him and his friend Fleabot from the edges of existence, at the possible cost of your own. Is that why you were stripped of your standing?"

"I failed in my duties and betrayed my office in doing so" she noted forlornly. "I will understand if you cannot risk giving me a second chance in entrusting me with the children's well-being and education."

Miiri cocked her head to the side in her own display of birdlike contemplation. "Why give you a second chance, when you have yet to fail at the first? You spurned the boundaries of your role in things to protect your friends. It may make you a misfit to destiny, Quoth of the House of Visionary, but quite fortunately, this is the great House where misfits fit right in." She touched her fingertips together and nodded to the flushed and grateful raven. "You have my approval, and my thanks, dear sister Quoth. Only do not let me hear you talk of your deeds as failings and betrayals any longer..." Her eyes grew dark. "No. These are two things I know much about. Failings are dependant largely on one's point of view... but betrayals are something else entirely."

The other pleasure slaves hurried away when the slave mistress came into the chamber. Mirri jumped up and assumed the correct formal kneeling position. She wished her sisters had had just a little more time to salve her stinging injuries.

“House Mother Loova,” Miiri said respectfully.

The older woman circled the younger, not speaking. She reached out her discipline stick and brushed aside the dark coil of Miiri’s hair to examine the red welts on her back. “You displeased him?” she said at last.

“Yes, House Mother,” Miiri confessed. “I… I do not know how.”

“It is enough that you did. A slave who cannot please deserves pain.”

“Yes, House Mother.”

Loova circled round until she was facing Miiri again. “Get up. Were you disobedient again? Did you question?”

Miiri shook her head. “I wouldn’t, House Mother. I wouldn’t shame my Master like that, to be disrespectful to a guest.”

"It is not your actions that consistently shame you... it is your eyes" the woman replied coldly. "They should reflect the glowing adoration you feel to serve as an extension of your Master... but there has always been something else at work in yours. The hand does not have to think when the body wishes to reach for the goblet. You have been told time and time again... your movements may be unfaltering, without hesitation, but not the light in your eyes."

"Yes House Mother" the young slave answered with honest sorrow for the failing.

Accepting this, the older woman looked a little uncomfortable at the wounds across the young woman's back, and turned her own eyes away. “The ways of foreigners are not our ways. Perhaps it was that you were too young to understand what he required of you.” For the slave mistress that was extremely gracious. She was usually quick enough to discipline Miiri ’s irreverent tongue and seditious ideas. Perhaps she too secretly thought their Master’s guest had been too quick with the lash.

“I will seek to learn better, House Mother,” Miiri promised. “And faster.”

The pain from her punishments hurt, but Miiri was more upset that she might have failed and so brought dishonour on the House of Aarixus. She knew how important her Master’s secret negotiations with the Lovetoads were, even if she did not know what they might be. She was terrified that she might somehow have spoiled them by her inability to master her role.

“You will have to learn, Miiri,” Loova told her. “Your sisters have tended to your abrasions?”

“Mostly. They have been very kind.”

The slave mistress checked that the ointments had been applied properly and there would be no permanent marking of Miiri’s valuable green skin. “You will have to learn,” she repeated, “because you are to be sold.”

Miiri’s eyes went wide in shock. “Sold!” she gasped. “But slave mother, I tried to do what our guest required and to… Please, beg the Prince not to be angry with me!”

“The Master is not angry with you, Miiri. But you are his property, as are we all, to keep or dispose of as he pleases. He has decided to transfer you to another Master, and that is the end of it.”

Miiri bit back tears. “I have tried to be obedient,” she argued, knowing even as she spoke that she was failing because she questioned her Master’s choice for her. “Even with that… Lovetoad I tried so hard…”

Loova looked even more uncomfortable. “Good. Because it is the Great Lovetoad of Frammistat Eight who is your new Master.” She patted Miiri on the shoulder. “It seems you pleased him better than you thought.”

Miiri didn’t know what to say. What could she say? What choice did she have but to be obedient.

“You were specified,” the house mother told her, “as part of the deal. Your new value is one million four hundred thousand shekla. Congratulations.”

Mirri was too shocked to be elated by her increase in value, considerable as it was. “My new Master is to be… the Slimy Slaver Lovetoad?” she asked disbelievingly. “But why would he come to live on Caph?”

Loova would not meet her eye. “You will not live on Caph,” she answered.

“But… to be sold off of Caph is not...”

“Obedience,” the slave mistress snapped. “Loyalty to your House. Duty. These are the marks of a proper slave. We do not choose out Masters, we are their chattels.”

“I will be so far away from everyone and everything I have ever known…” Miiri wanted to cry. “From everyone I love. I will never see them again.” But instead she tilted her chin up and forced back her tears. “I will serve my Master,” she promised.

The welts on her back began to fade to purple as she packed her things and made her farewells.

She had excused Quoth and made her way to the landing beneath the twisting spiral staircase that led up to the attic, and then beyond to the lantern room far atop the tower above. She paused there to look out of the lofted space over the cozy family room down below. Across from her an old window framed a view up the beach where the lights of the Lair mansion could be seen shining in the dark night. This was not just the home of a family, as unusual as they may be... it was a place rich in heroes and champions, in numbers and variety to rival the histories of even the most legendary of Houses of Caph. It was a place where the very people cut through the darkness as brilliantly as did the lighthouse itself.

"The ways of foreigners are not our ways" she echoed softly to herself. "Unless... we choose them."

Kaara was the newest and youngest of the Lovetoad’s Caphan slaves. He had bought this one because he liked the desolation that he had found in her eyes.

“Don’t move,” Miiri advised the girl – hardly more than a child, really – as she carefully smoothed healing oils onto the raw skin around Kaara’s wrists and ankles. The girl hadn’t yet the discipline not to try and pull from her chains when she was being whipped. “This will sting a little, but it will numb the pain afterwards and help the flesh to heal.”

There were tiny flaws on Kaara’s back and belly, signs of old floggings from before she was sold offworld to the Lovetoads. Kaara spoke little of her past, but she had revealed that she was a daughter of the House of Jaaxa; and Jaaxa had fallen. Kaara would have been one of the most valuable of the Lovetoad’s harem if she hadn’t been so roughly abused.

“I can’t… I can’t do this,” Kaara whispered, her eyes moistening at last. Miiri’s kindness hurt even worse than the Lovetoad’s malice. “I cannot go on.”

The Caphan’s compartment on the Lovetoad’s Slaveship was small and Miiri’s exhausted sisters were sleeping. Miiri had sent Losiira to bed too – the woman was as tired out as the others after entertaining the Lovetoad’s guests – and had promised to care for Kaara’s wounds herself. She’d brought the girl into the bathing area so as not to disturb the others.

“You must go on,” Miiri told her. “A slave endures.”

Kaara turned her face away. “I don’t want to endure,” she confessed. “I want to die.”

Miiri jerked Kaara’s head back. “That is sin!” she told her. “To kill yourself would bring shame on you and all your… your…”

“On my House?” challenged Kaara. “What House? My House is gone, and I am nothing. Less than nothing. Raided and sold at auction, sold to a stranger on a strange world… or… whatever this place is.”

“We are aboard the space ship of our Master,” Miiri explained. “His affairs include participation in some championship of honour called the Transworlds Challenge, where there is great renown to be won by warriors of deeds. We travel amongst the stars, Kaara!”

The girl looked around the silk-curtained quarters of the pleasure slaves. There were no windows. “I don’t see the stars.” It was a beautiful prison, but it was still a cage.

“We have to believe that they are out there,” Miiri replied.

Kaara shuddered.

“When I was sold to the Lovetoad, I thought my life was over,” Miiri confessed. “He is… not always the gentlest of Masters. He does not… understand… the ways of Caph. But we have learned something, my sisters and I, in our months in his harem.”

Kaara choked back bitter replies. A slave must never criticise her Master. “What have you learned?” she asked at last.

“That nothing is forever,” Miiri replied, resolve in her eyes. “Once I was a child in the House of Kiivas. I played with my nymph-sisters and danced beneath the t’grum trees. And I thought those years would never end. Then I began my training, under the strict watch of the House Mother, those long hours of practise and exercise. Oh, how I hated those exercises! And then I was sold to Prince Aarmus of the House of Aarixus, and for a while I thought I was beloved of him. But nothing is forever.”

“Do you think of home?” Kaara wondered. “Sometimes, when you are alone at night?”

“I remember my mother, Ekooria, although of course I saw little of her. I remember her stories. I remember the laugh of my little sister Anna. I remember my dreams.”

“I remember nothing,” Kaara said. “All my memories are dirty and stained. Remembering hurts. Everything hurts.”

“This isn’t what I dreamed,” Miiri admitted softly. “I dreamed of a kind Master and a strong son, and beautiful daughters. I dreamed of holding my children before my Master and saying ‘Behold, here are your heirs. I have done my duty.’”

Kaara’s bleak eyes found Miiri’s. “But that won’t happen any more. You know we will never return home. If we ever bear children they will be the sons and daughters of aliens, transformed by science, strangers to us. We will grow old and no-one will care for us. We will die and no-one will sing for us. So why not just die now?”

Miiri held Kaara as she had once held Ohanna. “Nothing is forever,” she repeated. “Not even this. If you die today you will never smile tomorrow. Who knows what will come with the morning? Who knows what the next chapter will hold for us? Who knows how our stories will end?”

Then the slaveship shuddered as if something had exploded. Something was happening.

The next chapter had begun.

"They wanted the bedroom highest up the tower" a voice explained softly, startling the former slave from her thoughts. "It's a princess thing. And maybe a winged lion thing too."

Miiri turned to find a glowing green woman standing awkwardly at the end of the landing, shyly brushing a strand of holographic hair behind her ear. "Hallie" theCaphan greeted her warmly, wraping her in a sisterly embrace before the young woman could think of how to react.

"Miiri" she sighed back, her stiff form relaxing in the warm hug. "Vizh is hung up and will be along, but I came to check on you when the others arrived at the Mansion. We were beginning to think you'd all lost your way."

"After it took me so many years to find it?" the Caphan asked. "Never." She pulled back and looked at the young woman who had carried her children to term. "Dancer has told me about how you and Visionary saved our children from that monster woman in theMythlands. I can't ever thank you enough..."

"Oh, that bitch Camellia was going to burn for what she did... there was never any doubt" Hallie replied fiercely. "We just happened to get there first. And it's not like we didn't have help." She looked uncomfortable. "Miiri... we never wanted to leave you and the others behind... The Faerie Queene..."

Miiri cut her off with a gesture. "I can never thank you enough" she repeated. "You did exactly as you should have... you got the children home as soon as possible. As soon as I heard that, how could I be anything but thrilled?"

Despite the truth of this, the Caphan's eyes clouded, briefly, as the memory of her mother's story came back to her... of the slave girl Daax, heroically presenting her rescued heir to her master. The images of herself, triumphantly presenting the recovered Naari to Visionary had played in her mind over and over during the quest... It was almost startling to realize now that that role had never been hers to claim in the first place. After all, she wasn't the one to ultimately give birth to Visionary's heirs at all... She had needed the help of another to get even that far on her journey.

"I don't understand why what I said that was so wrong..." Odoona complained as the other rescued slaves explored their new living quarters in the Master's palace, or "condo" as the Earthans described it. "She does have the hips of a boy... or at best, an athletic girl. It was quite obvious what her function was within the House, and her equivalent value."

Miiri sighed and whispered back. "Yes, but I fear to draw attention to such things may be an insult in this culture... Their ways are obviously not our own." She turned back to their hostess. "We apologize if Odoona has offended you, dear sister..."

"Call me Hallie" the glowing green woman answered flatly. "I told you, the green look is a coincidence. I'm not one of you."

"We apologize, dear sister Hallie..." Miiri continued again. "In our culture, we all have our individual roles to fill within the house, and yet all are essential to our Master's honor. Odoona meant no attack upon your ability to uphold that honor, or the importance of your role to our new House. She merely noted that your body type makes it clear that men do not take their pleasure in you."

"I see." If anything, the woman's eyes grew darker. "Thank you for clearing that up... Mimi, was it?"

"Miiri, dear sister."

"Right... I'll be sure to remember that."

Miiri bowed low with utmost grace. "You honor me."

"Oh, good" Hallie replied. "Anyway, with the League of Regulars spread about, we shouldn't have too much trouble finding places for you all until Vizh gets home and straightens this whole mess out. You'll probably have to share a bed or two, however."

"We will share the Master's bed, of course" Odoona informed her.

The glowing woman's eyes flashed. "All nine of you. In Vizh's bed."

Odoona shrugged, an action that produced enough motion to further tighten the Earth woman's jaw. "We have taken our place there every night since our Master claimed us as his own. Such is the reward of a valued slave... for both woman and master."

"I wouldn't know" Hallie growled, "...But Vizh will be getting his just reward for all this, I assure you" She headed for the door. "As for you lot, if you need anything else, just ask Kerry downstairs to help you. How flammable are those outfits you're wearing, anyway?"

Miiri blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"Nevermind. It's not like there's enough to them to cause any real damage." The green Earth woman nodded to them. "Enjoy your stay at Hotel He-Is-So-Dead-When-He-Gets-Back. I wouldn't bother to unpack."

"We are wearing all the clothing we shall need" Miiri assured her, baffled as she was.

Hallie looked over the substantial expanse of bare, nubile, green skin within the room. "Of course you are" she sighed, blinking out.

Odoona shook her hair, frowning in disapproval. "What an unpleasant house slave. No wonder she is of low enough value to have never known her Master's bed."

Miiri looked to where the glowing young woman had disappeared. "Really?" she breathed. "I thought her quite stunning in her looks."

That caught Odoona's attention. "In what way, sister? She was all hard forms and unwelcoming movements. And despite her role, her eyes positively flashed with open defiance at every turn."

"Yes" Miiri smiled in admiration. "They did, didn't they?"

"Maggie, I mean, Naari... she usually goes with Maggie... She tries to hide her injuries..." Hallie was whispering as they climbed the last stairs to the attic door. "She keeps her head down, and her arm hidden whenever possible. She's very shy and reserved, but we're trying to draw her out more... Epitome and Dancer are working with her to condition the muscles on her atrophied side so that she doesn't need to rely on a brace as she gets older..."

"I understand" Miiri responded.

"She's very respectful to her elders, but she sees so much more than she lets on. Of course, they're both very bright, and resourceful..."

"Of course."

"It's just that Maggie takes her time and considers things. Griff devours information at an alarming rate, always eager to learn more before he's considered the last thing he picked up... and not always the best at deciding when to share something and when to keep it to himself. Interacting with anyone other than Maggie is still fairly new to him, after all. He's very protective of his sister... her biggest fan. He tries to keep her from holding back all the time..."

"Hallie" the Caphan finally had to stop the outpouring from her friend and take her by the shoulders. "I am not taking your place."

The holographic woman blinked in confusion, and swallowed guiltily. "I wasn't... What?"

"You are briefing me, painfully, as one handing over an honored duty to a superior" she surmised. "I am not your superior, and you do not need to step down."

Hallie looked at the former slave closely. "But you're their mother."

Miiri nodded in wonder at how those words thrilled her very soul, and then she made a decision. "And your role in their lives is equally important... that it should finish with the rescue of the children does not make for the right sort of ending at all." She looked to the bright, hopeful woman. "Ours is not an easy family to define, and there is no word on Caph that has quite the right meaning for your relationship to the children. However, I believe Earth has an odd, casual term which may be accurate." She smiled. "Mom."

"It... means the same as "mother"..." Hallie pointed out.

Miiri nodded. "Perfect, then." They stood outside the children's door, the moonlight poking through the breaking storm clouds lighting the dark house below. "I suppose I never questioned it. That one day I would bear daughters who might grow in grace and beauty. That perhaps I might bring forth a strong son who would bring honour to his House and status to me. That my daughters would sing to me when I grew old. That my son might return to speak a word of remembrance and my girls would make the threnody when my passing came. That I might be loved and remembered. But I never expected... this."

Hallie watched as Miiri gently traced her fingers over the surface of the wooden door.

"Sometimes things go astray, and we fall off the map" the Caphan noted. "We have to make choices, without knowing which way we want to go. Sometimes, we get lost. But maybe... maybe we can learn to draw a new map, and end up where we truly should be."

"Have you found where you want to be, Miiri?" Hallie asked.

She nodded, smiling through tears. "Yes."

Hallie hugged her close and smiled, then faded out to leave the young mother to finish the last of her journey.

"This is my choice" Miiri breathed to steady herself, grasping the doorknob. "No matter where fate may have tossed me, this is the role I claim for myself."

The children... her children... stirred as the door and floorboards creaked comfortingly. Naari rubbed her eyes with her good hand and blinked through her straight, mouse brown hair. "Mother?" she whispered quietly, her scarred face frozen in wonder. Her brother sat up in the bunk bed above her, his hair jutting at unruly angles, his dark eyes forming a baffled expression that she recognized instantly. "What?" he asked, confused.

"Yes" Miiri responded, smiling at the life she had earned. "I've come home."

Post By Visionary, with the Hooded Hood Sun Jan 28, 2007 at 01:18:25 am EST	Subject Miiri's Story: In which a young mother finds her way home at long last.

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