Hallen shakes her head and stares.  She scowls at Fiera, her mouth working fiercely, before she speaks again.  "I buried his head because that's all that was left."  She swallows hard.  "They brought me his head because I made them kill him."<br/><br/>She wipes the back of her hand across her cheek, her flush of shame and a glimmer of guilty tears impossible to hide.  "I didn't mean to.  But he made me so angry..." with a furious sneer, she spits into the water.  A long, needle-like fish glides by, a light green ghost in the murky water.  She shakes her head, "Gods, I wish I had a drink," and-- amazingly, this young woman, certainly no more than fifteen years of age, begins to relate her tale.<br/>*<br/>She explains that she has, for her whole life, possessed unusual abilities.  She wounded animals would find her, sometimes to be helped, other times to be put out of their misery.  As she grew older, she found it easier to understand their needs... eventually, it was as though she could speak to them, in a sense... sharing a connection.  For the past few years, it seemed like she could even summon them.  When her family was hungry, she could sometimes summon a swamp deer, or even a school of fish.<br/><br/>Lately, things with her family had grown... strained.  Her husband had taken to drinking more often than usual... she was worried about the children, and had engaged him in a few altercations.  Apparently, he hadn't been himself for months, and progressively worsened in temperament.  He had despised drunkeness, because-- in their youth together-- his father had been a violent drinker.  Things worsened still when, a few weeks ago, he started to become... forceful.  She deflected his rage from their children, but feared that she wouldn't be able to do so forever.<br/><br/>She focused her will toward harming him.  She was hurt, delirious, and frightened for her youngest son, who'd aged only seven.  She thought, perhaps desperately, to summon a venemous snake, or spider, to hurt him-- to make him sick, perhaps, so he would have to return to town, where she could write to the mainland for her sister to send aid.<br/><br/>The next day, nothing... no spider, no snake.  Nothing at all.  Not for days.  She thought she'd lost her ability.  That was when she followed her husband to the spring...<br/>"And I saw it.  I saw him... with something.  She--" at this, she seems terribly afraid, pained and wounded.  "She... or it..?  was strupping him... there at the water's edge in the grass.  I know it weren't right, but... I watched.  I watched them until he was spent, I couldn't help myself.  Then she let him go... he tried to get a drink, he went to the water."  She shakes her head.  "It cursed at him, then cast him away."  She swallows, as if remembering in fear.  "It was like nothing I've ever seen... I was afraid for my life.  I lay there for hours, afraid she would see... it was... and... the heat."  She weeps openly now, but seems unaware of it.  "I went to the water and drank it, the heat made me so weak, and... then... this."  She touches her face, youthful and lovely.  "I was like this, and I felt so alive, and overwhelmed, and powerful."  She sobs through the next words, no longer able to speak except between broken gasps.  "When... I went home... they were there... and the one... the bird... it had... his head... and it... it spat it out... it gave it... it gave it to me."