Last Battle

Miriam had barely closed the door behind her before she slumped to the floor and began coughing once again. She was almost choking on her own blood, gagging at how awful it tasted in her mouth. It was a mistake to sit down, she realized that now when she was incapable of getting back to her feet, and as she heard footsteps coming down the stairs she prepared herself for the humiliation of being seen like this.
The tears had stopped, but her eyes and cheeks were still red revealing just how badly she had cried earlier. She sighed and let her head hit the wall. Weirdly, the pain had subdued into a faint numbness, and it almost scared her. It couldn't be a good sign to not feel anything.

Proteus had just left Cinderella's room and had started to search for Frollo: even though the wound that Miriam had caused to him hurted, he almost didn't feel the pain. He was too happy. She had agreed! He was going to marry her! In that moment it didn't even matter if he could have died a few hours later, he would have died as a married man, a man married to the woman he really loved. And probably because of his happiness the horror he felt was even bigger as soon as he reached the hallway. Miriam was sitting on the floor, surrounded by her own blood and on her body he could already see countless wounds. For a second he paralyzed, opening wide his eyes, he wasn't even able to breath. He wanted to scream her name but he simply couldn't: in a second he was by her side, he didn't even realize to have moved, but there he was, looking at her with a warried glance, totally forgetting the fact that she had recently attacked him. He looked at her wondering what to do: she wasn't dead... she couldn't be dead! But what had he to do? There were so many wounds... he wanted to carry her to the kitchen but he risked to cause here more pain and even worse damages... he felt powerless...

She opened her eyes slowly to see who had found her in this state, and couldn't help but smile weakly when she saw who. God thought he was being funny, didn't he? After everything she had done to him, it would be Proteus who helped her. She wasn't sure if she'd do the same in his possition.
"Of all-," she started, but was interrupted by another cough, sprinkles of blood escaping her mouth. "The people," she continued, still smiling amused at the secret joke. If she could, she would have shook her head, but she was simply too tired.

"Shh..." he whispered gently to her when she tried to talk, and he felt a tight on his heart when she coughed blood. "Don't tire yourself... I'm here, don't worry now... i'll help you..." he just wondered how: even with all his best intentions, she was really, really messed up...
He was acting confident, and was smiling to reassure her: he knew she wasn't stupid, she perfectly knew her own conditions, but it was human being comforted by a smile and last time he checked she still was.
He thought fastly and in the end he couldn't think to any other idea: he had to bring her in the kitchen, and fastly. Ignoring the blood, he took her in his arms as gently as he could before to start walking fastly toward the kitchen
"You'll be alright, don't worry..." he just wished it was true...

She did as he asked and kept her tounge, but as they approached the kitchen she could clearly hear voices from the other side of the door.
Desperatly she tugged at Proteus' top with all of her remaining strength - which wasn't much. They couldn't go in there, if they did she would be spotted by even more people. The humiliation was enough with just Proteus seeing her in this state, and she kept tugging to get his attention.
"N-no... spire," she let out and tugged more. He couldn't take her in there, he couldn't.

He listened as well the voices from the kitchen but it didn't matter to him: her pride was pointless in his eyes, she needed cures, and if other people could help it could only be a good thing. But, even if week, she kept tugging him: at the beginning he tried to ignore her, but in the end he sighed.
Fine, if she wanted so...
He changed his direction and started to walk toward the spire...