A circle of destruction about a mile in diameter lay just short of two days ride south east of the Dhorisha Plains. It encompassed a hill and once held a house, but no more, having been destroyed by a mage who had finally been pushed into an insane rage by the owner of the house. It had been engulfed in flames, taking all who did not have the wits to get themselves out. All in all, few survived and no one came to their rescue.

The ghostly figure of a stallion moved through the ruined landscape, dodging flame and blinking against the smoke. His white flank was streaked w/ sweat and dirt from the road only to be joined now by soot, but it was obvious he did not notice. He also did not seem to notice the bodies beneath his hooves, taking no special care to avoid stepping on them. In fact, a passerby might have thought there was a definite extra force put into the steps he took when he tread through them, as if were trying to deliver a final blow to the dead beneath him, but neither his head nor eyes turned to acknowledge them.

Finally, the stallion paused in his journey, having found a figure near the middle of the destruction and far away from the others that circled her. She lay on her side unmoving, seemingly dead. Yet the stallion nuzzled her, pushing his nose against her shoulder until he finally got a response; a very tiny whimper.

He looked her over, the poor pathetic figure at his feet. She looked all of twelve, but he knew she was just shy of sixteen, with white hair that was peppered by soot and reddened by her own blood. She was thin and her mind was very, very fragile, but he saw extreme potential in her. She was important to him and to the place he wanted to bring her.

His nose nuzzled her again and this time she sobbed, shivering. Her body was cold, for she had very little on, and that, combined w/ the pain in her body and soul, crippled her. She could no more move on her own than the very smallest of newborns, only cry weakly and hope to die. If he'd had human lips, the stallion would have smiled. Her goddess was not going to come for her, not today. He'd been sent instead.

His mind touched hers and he gently sent a store of energy to her, just enough for her to rise up off the ground and climb onto his back. She probably would not remember this too well tomorrow, but that was alright; he would be with her always from now on.

There was plenty of time to explain.

Author's Note: Okay, the next person who points out my shorthand in a review is going to get it.

Listen up people- this story was started almost FIVE years ago, and finished almost TWO years ago, and if any of you people who are hung up on the shorthand had kept reading, you would have seen that it STOPS in the earlier chapters.

AND if you had finished the story before posting a review, you would have seen that I had addressed it in the last chapter in another one of these Author's Notes.

Like I said, I wrote this story years ago, and no, I am not going to fix it. I've left it up so that I have an example of how I have grown as a writer, and I made that other Author's Note to show that I realized that using the shorthand was a mistake.

STOP POINTING IT OUT TO ME!