(BEST VIEWED FULL SIZE!) Aranée had a few special talents. She attributed some to her excellent woodsman's training - the rest could only be from her Elvish heritage. Today she decided to use a talent she knew to be disconcerting to humans: the unnatural ability to move, for only a few seconds, extremely quickly and silently so that she seemed to materialize out of thin air. While unusually valuable to a hunter and woodsman, she also believed it could get someone's complete attention. She wasn't disappointed. Galen walked his horse into a clearing and swept his eyes across the small open area. He looked past the bare rock in the middle of the clearing to the far trees, then back again - only to see her and a lion cub calmly seated on the same rock as if they had been there for hours. His horse snorted in surprise and they both took an involuntary step backwards. Taking a deep breath, he calmed the horse and willed his own rapidly beating heart to return to normal. "That was quite an entrance." He said it in a far calmer voice than he felt. She regarded him with alert crystalline green eyes, and in a cool clear voice offered, "Not as impressive as your entrance at Melius." Eyes crinkling, he laughed at that, and standing upright, offered his hand to her. She stood and approached him, and took the proffered hand while lowering her hood. "You're an Elf!" he said in obvious surprise. "How very observant," she replied dryly. Then realizing how harsh it might have sounded, she added, "Half-Elf actually - my mother was human." She watched him closely as she said it, but his expression never showed anything more than a deep interest in her. His frankness was both refreshing and unusual. He circled around her, inspecting her from head to toe in an appraising manner, which was both unsettling and - pleasant? She felt an unusual flutter deep inside her, and struggled to get her thoughts back under control. With a small ghost of a smile he tousled Kuila's fuzzy head and the cub responded with bright eyes and an obvious cat-smile. She was finally able to manage a cool, "What sort of man knowingly takes on four Greeners on his own?" "Actually there were only three of them at the moment." She raised an eyebrow and he continued, "I watched them for nearly two hours and chose a time and place when only three of them were present. I could tell by how they moved that they were typical Greeners - eager to fight, but without much skill." He looked at her intently, and the butterflies lurched inside her again. "I was hoping the bowman would stay out of it a bit longer than he did," he smiled with an odd twinkle in his eyes, "but it so happened that was not a problem after all." Another unaccustomed feeling, she felt warmth radiating from her cheeks. In a day of unusual firsts, Galen had yet another surprise for her: Bowing deeply at the waist, he said in a voice that offered little doubt of his sincerity, "Aranée D'Mere, I thank you for my life." Rising, he looked into her eyes as if looking into her soul. "From this day forward, you have my arm and my sword, you have naught but to ask." --- TO BE CONTINUED! View the series in numbered sequence to get the entire story. PLEASE leave a comment, it means SO much to me! Image and story &copy 2008 Larry Hodge