as requested by al

Al had suggested that I post bits and piece of the stuff I am currently working on. This is a wee bit brave, however I have made a few changes to this document, so this is not the final draft. But rather the first draft. Feel free to make comments as you wish....And if you are wondering who she is...you will have to wait :)

Her hands where shaking out of control now. It was not fear, it was simply age. Age controlled every move she made now; including the shaking of her hands. She had refused to age gracefully. She refused to retire from her post until her legs would no longer hold her up. She refused to put down her blade until her fingers could no longer wrap around the hilt. And now that old age has taken all that she was away she hid her hands from friends under her sleeves, so they could not see this new weakness. She had refused to age for so long that now that it was useless to fight it she could not admit her loss. This was the battle she would never win; this was the battle she knew she had lost years before she realized she was fighting it.

And in the cold winter night, with her window open so she could see the moon as she sipped her tea she lost that battle. She had put her tea on the table rattling the cup against the saucer and with one final breath she wished all fare well, until she saw them again.

Two days would pass before anyone would find her, she had been a legend in her youth, but in her death she was a secret. The young man who order her to be buried in the sacred grounds only knew she was to be buried there, he did not know why, he only knew that it must be this way. Those who attended the burial were a mixture of the elderly, who themselves could barely hold themselves up, they knew who she was and her young family, who only knew her as mother or grandmother, they too would never know her legend. None of them knew where she came from.

Her house was sealed until the family could finish grieving. The doors and windows were locked and a guard was posted at the front to keep away would be thieves, and the local priest cast a protecting blessing, to guard the remaining bits of her spirit to the halls of light. Then time forgot her. Her family moved on forgetting her house and any pieces of her they would one day want or need and time rolled on and her legend like her body died, her secret was forgotten and what she left the world grew old and died. As time passed the house was abandon by the guard, the yard went on kept and the trees and shrubs grew up forcing pressure on weakened walls and where stood the house of a legend stood a dense garden of thorns, trees and now became a home to many new creature, a shelter from the elements. The village she lived in too disappeared after time, the kingdom she once protected grew up and broaden villages were replaced by towns and then cities, some where abandon and her village was lost. The priests moved on and the world grew up.