The young girl lay unconcernedly in the wealthy and embellished looking bed chamber. Her raven black hair sprawled at the sides of her youthful face, atop a plush and downlike pillow. She stretched luxuriously, letting the softness of the silken bedclothes embrace her as she passively watched the wind pass through the veiled canopy above.

A small noise shattered her blissful reverie, and she turned her face to follow the commotion. A small hand became visible at the far edge of the bed, grasping at the sheets at the corner where they cascaded intricately down the edge of the mattress. She rolled over, propping herself up onto her hands and knees, and crawled to peer over the end of the bed.

Below her was a child, sickly and weak, covered in odorous filth. He stared at the girl with doleful eyes, reaching up for her. She watched him for a time, before carelessly dislodging his hand and giving him a gentle push away from the delicate and soft sheets. From the shadows that surrounded, more and more of the plaguestricken little ones came to gather, at all sides now, hesitantly trying to climb atop the elegant bed. Laboriously she set to pushing the weak children away from her regal sleeping place, one by one, denying them the comfort she seemed unwilling to share.

Then the bed began to rise slowly, floating away from the huddled children below. They tenaciously continued at their efforts to join the girl on her leisurely throne of a bed, but unsuccessfully, for she easily kept them at bay. Soon she was too far above them for their outstretched fingers to make contact with her ornate perch, and only the sounds of their lamenting sobs reached her so high above. She watched them, pressed together, as they wept away their frustration and sadness.

Slowly the shadowy room came alit, and from a corner came a beautiful equine creature, white as snow, and crowned with a golden spiral of a horn. The children gathered to the newlycome beast, and it lowered it's head down to them, voicing comforting sounds to the huddled younglings.

As the girl watched the creature and the heartbroken children that surrounded it, the creature raised its gaze to fall on her. It's eyes were stricken with sadness, yet large and beautiful and filled with hope, and conveyed a nearly imploring expression. Before the young girl could open her mouth to utter a word, the creature and it's youthful companions faded away in a flash of blinding light.

Mylin gasped for breath, her eyes shooting open, and her slender form jerking to a seated position on the plain straw-filled mattress she rested upon. Her eyes were wide and filled with worry as they darted about the dimly lit tavern room. The haziness of dreaming slowly slid away from her, and in it's place remained only a panging regret. She closed her eyes for a long time, her head lowered, and a single tear dropped from the corner of an eye.