His head filled with tales of valor, his heart filled with the honor entrusted to him, the young warrior prepared himself for the battle ahead. He recited the warrior's creed: "Our cause is just. Our force is strong. Our weapons wielded in God's name. Our foes are wretched. Their cause is wrong, their weapons the stuff of demon bane. Heros shall be made this day and the wretched shall be purged."

When the air sang with the first hail of arrows, an old soldier, scarred in face and limb, whispered in his ear. "Use your shield well, lad. They recite the same credo."

"Our Mabb," said the nurse, "loves to wander. Goes where she shouldn't, does our Mabb.
"I don't wander," Mabb said sharply. "I know where I'm going and why."

"Of course you do, dear." The nurse bent down and began to rummage through Mabb's pockets. "You have to check her for dead things," she told the orderly, "and injured things. Don't squirm, dear. You know the rules. She's a finder, our Mabb is. Just the other day she found a dead bird on the tennis court."
"It. was a hawk," Mabb told her, "a Goshawk. I wanted it for my collection." The old woman smiled at the orderly and then glared at the nurse. "I don't have a goshawk," she said, pouting.

"But you've got something," said the nurse. I know you, Mabb. I know when you've got some dead thing up your sleeve. Stop squirming and let me see your sleeves. Come, come, show me."
"It's for my collection!" cried Mabb.

The nurse sighed and folded her arms. "The cook made lemon pudding, " she said. "But if you've got another dead bird.--"
Mabb held out her hand. "It's not dead," she said softly, "just very quiet, like it's sleeping."

Melindi frowned when she saw the rabbits. "Is that the pair that ruined my garden?"

Tiel said nothing. He let out a soft sigh that meant yes, then closed his eyes.

Melindi sighed as well, a heavy sound that meant she was a creature of profound patience and eminent wisdom. She understood him if all the world did not. Her husband was still lost in those small, sharp moments when the arrows had met their marks.

She watched him for a time, catching her breath when, for all of a heartbeat, he wasn't there. Quietly she made her way to the kitchen, where she laid the rabbits on the block. Tiel would dress them if he made his way back to her. If not, she would follow him into the brush. Better to live wild with Tiel than to listen to her mother for the rest of her life. Her mother saying, "I told you not to marry that beast. I saw it in his face after that first hunt with your father. Still wanting the wild life, he was, wanting it so much he vanished right before our eyes. I knew then he wasn't for you."

That dragons are a myth is myth in itself. That dragons are large is myth as well. They are all around us, occupying those small, dark places invisible to the eye because the mind refuses to see them. . . .

from the Magnificent Tuttle's "Treatise on Dragons"