Dark Haired Man
or
Blonde Haired Child

She walked into the small room, slung her cloak over a stout wooden chair, and rang for the chambermaid. She requested a hot bath to be drawn up for her, then removed her top layers of clothing and relaxed on the small bed provided for her.
After the maid had filled the bath, she thanked her for the water, then pulled off the remaining layers and sunk down to her neck in the warm water. A small sigh escaped from her lips as she felt all the tension in her bones melt away, and she was quite content to sit in the tub until the water had nearly grown cold.
She washed her unruly hair, grimacing as her hands found one particularly stubborn knot that would likely need to be cut out. Wrapping a towel around her body, she stepped carefully out of the tub, then slipped into bed and promptly fell asleep.
She was in the mountains, though certainly not somewhere uninhabited, as she appeared to be in a small hamlet, and was standing in the middle of a small field, small children playing beside her.
One of them tugged on her hand, "Come play with us!" the child laughed, but Phoenix shook her head. She took the child's small hands in her own, knelt so that she was talking to the girl at eye level, "Another time sweetheart, I'm looking for someone, have you seen him?"
"What does he look like?" the little girl asked inquisitively, "Maybe I've seen him!" Her eyes lit up at the thought of being helpful.
"Well," she said, thinking back in her thoughts to the image she had seen. She pursed her lips as she thought, brows furrowed in concentration. "He has dark hair, fairly tall, he was wearing a black cloak…" Her voice trailed off as she realized how vague her description was, hundreds of people would fit that same description. The girl, however, had become even more wide-eyed at the description, and now tugged on her hand even more vehemently than before. "I know him! I know him!" she shouted, bouncing up and down with glee. "Can I show you?" she asked exuberantly.
Phoenix looked at the laughter on the little girl's face, and decided to indulge the child her fancy. She herself had no way to find the mysterious stranger she sought, and therefore she had nothing to lose.
"Alright," she conceeded, "show me where he is."
The little girl set off at a run, "Follow me!" she yelled, giggling and tumbling herself down the hillside, forcing Phoenix to sprint in order to catch up. She followed the girl through the busy market streets, almost losing sight of her when a merchant blocked her and tried to sell her some of his pastries, but she dodged him and managed to cry out, "Wait!"
The little girl stopped, waited for Phoenix to catch up.
"Why are you running?" Phoenix asked.
"Because its fun!" she laughed again, "Don't you agree?"
"Well, yes," she admitted, "but not if we run for too long or too fast, because then I get tired and sore."
"Oh." The girl said, drawing out the word several times its length. "I'm sorry," she said, "My mommy says I have too much energy, I guess she's right." She tried to look somber for a minute, then broke out giggling.
"Naw," Phoenix replied, shaking her head with laughter at the little girl's actions, "You have just the right amount of energy for a girl your age. It's me who has too little energy. Would it be all right if we walk the rest of the way though? My feet are getting tired."
"Yep, that's fine by me," the little girl replied, "We're almost there already."
She led Phoenix down one more street, then stopped in front of a small white house adorned with green trimming around the windows and doors. "This is my mommy and daddy's and my house," she said properly, "and he's in here too."
She led Phoenix inside the house, which was strangely enough empty at this time. "Where are your parents?" Phoenix asked, surprised that it was almost suppertime and there was no evidence that anyone had started the evening meal yet.
"My mommy is a seamstress, she works on Weaver's lane, and father's a baker, so he'll bring something home once the merchants' shops close for the day. I just keep myself busy until they're done work, and then we all eat together." Phoenix nodded at the explanation, it made sense, though she didn't like the idea of such a sweet girl spending the entire morning home alone each day. "So where is he?" she asked again, not hearing anyone else's voice in the house besides her's and the little girl's.
"Oh, he's upstairs in my room, that's where he always stays." She gestured for Phoenix to go up the stairs. She did, noticing as she did so many small paintings of her the little girl and her family, though none of the stranger she sought.
"Yep, that's my mommy," the little girl said, pointing at a slim blonde woman in one of the pictures. And that's daddy standing next to her," she said proudly, pointing to the fair-haired man standing next to her, "It was their wedding day. My aunty Nana painted that one, she's the artistic one in the family." Indeed she was, for the paintings looked so real that Phoenix could almost have been looking at a real person, only one that was far away.
The little girl slipped around Phoenix's waist as she stopped to look at the painting, climbed to the top of the stairs and entered one of the rooms. "He's in here," she called, waiting for Phoenix to join her.
Phoenix stepped around the corner, and didn't know whether to laugh or cry by what she saw. Sitting in that room, resting lightly against the floor, she saw that haunting face that she'd been searching for.
And it was only a painting.
It was only then that she realized one other thing: The reason the child had been so excited when she'd mentioned her dark-haired stranger was because the girl, her parents, the merchants she'd past in the market, everyone in the town had fair hair...