My Friends...

Words hold hope... for those who care,

To see us through when times are spare,

They plant in hearts loves eternal seed,

Though dormant lays this yet grown flower,

It waits to live its destined hour,

To grow again... if only you believe.

Listen ye who this way pass, 'twas told to me by Bard... A lass... 'Tis true... You've Only to Believe. A Warrior lived in times gone by, with raven hair and ice blue eyes, one who once was Ares Chosen Queen. She waged a war on human kind, that neither then nor in our time, any living being had ever seen. Her rage 'twas told was born of blood, spilled from a brother that she'd loved... By a warlord who went by the name Cortese. Her cry was "Vengeance!", through the land, and kill did she most any man, who raised a weapon for that damned Cortese. They claim the blood lust took her then, but by the Bards recorded hand, I learned a different tale I must concede. Her heart still held some sense of what, was right and wrong and what was Just, and some she spared... The innocents, this Warrior born of others killing deeds.

What I here say do not mistake, the women did the Light forsake, and War God Ares bloody hunger feed. Still an ember burned within, that lived despite her life of sin, and fought the darkness hard to keep her free. Alas that embers warmth aglow, set its hope on one who'd throw, that barely breathing bit of love away. Who'd push 'twas left within that heart, further yet into the dark, despair that echoed empty in her soul. His name it Julius Caesar was, a man whose hunger lust for blood, none but War God Ares could exceed. 'Twas he the Warrior Princess chose, to give the remnants of the rose, the ember that her heart tried so to keep. He took it as he did all else ... no thought for any but himself, and brought the Warrior Princess to her Knees.

'Twas then the Bard says blood ran cold, 'twer no warmth left within that soul, and truly then began the killing spree. Ten years she waged a war of hate, on others whom by luck or fate, crossed the path of Ares Chosens' need. She burned and pillaged all she found... City, farm or village town... It all became one endless bloody stream. None was foe or so she thought, who'd stand against what she had wrought, until one day... His name was Hercules. The evil she had come to be, could not defeat this God's Offspring, and Ares Chosen anguished vanquished needs. Yet when the Chosen fell Again, she felt the weight of her souls sins, the cold and empty echo of her being.

No longer able to defend, her heinous horrid acts against, a world she once had tried so hard to bleed... She folded in unto herself, believing there was nothing else, to live or die for... Nothing to retrieve. And once she yielded... Once she fell... The one she'd lost... Her soul itself.... Began to sow a deeply buried seed. The ember that still lived within... that once was dormant glowed again... A flowers bud where once there grew a weed. She knew not how to tend it yet, to help it grow but still she let, the life that stirred within begin to breathe.

Flame and flower grew as One, internal light becoming sun, and as they bloomed all who looked could see... Where once raged hate and death and fear, baptized in blood and pain and tears... Where once a soulless hound of hell laid siege... An human cry could soon be heard, emerging sounds of evil purged, and came a yell of courage from the pain. For change is never painless no... We all must reap what we have sown and she... She was no different from the rest.

Her soul had nearly died you see, saved only by its longing need, to feel and fill that which hate once seized. And wrenching silent screams she sounded, as her conscience' voice resounded, wringing out her guilt in all its grief. She vowed to spend the days life lay, ahead of her a different way, than those she left behind her to the past. To fight Forever all she'd been, although she knew that in the end, no wrong she'd done could ever be repaid. To give the life and light that grew, inside a chance to start anew, and let it plant its roots within her being. She'd give to those she'd taken from, and do whatever could be done, to heal the wounds she'd caused so broad and deep.

And thus began a journey that, to hear the Bard tell is as yet, unfinished and it seems may always be. The evilness that hell hath wrought, is far diminished but not gone, this Fallen Angel still is under siege. She walks the path toward greater good, beside her friend who with her stood, no matter what ill others might believe. Her friend, the Bard has held her fast, when Ares tries to take her back, his one and only Chosen, Warrior, Queen. And as they travel toward the light, the flame of love that hope ignited grows from embers Joined... If You Believe.

Epilogue

Storms may make it flicker,

Of this I cannot lie,

But this I know beyond all doubt...

The flame will never die.