Hi everyone!!!  I put this up a while ago and I forgot to mention that I need help -- near desperately.  Please coment on my work and criticize it.  I need the to have this done very badly.  This is going to be sent out one chapter at a time (only three chapters to date.)  PLEASE HELP!!!!
     Ja!
      ~Utsu~

Prologue:  Blue Rose Valley, Phaedra, 221 D.M.P
Dragon Master



	On a field covered in blood and glowing embers the Dragon Master lyes in her own pooling blood, watching the skies over head as column after column of dragons finish the war that the Ahkmet empire started 221 years ago.  A war that they had started over who would control the Dragon Master.

	"How degrading," she thought to herself, no longer able to feel the lower half of her body.  "Myself, Rowan, the great Dragon Master, killed by a single arrow.  But who can shoot an arrow that distance?  No human can shoot an arrow to the dragon's peak altitude range, only an immortal is capable of that fete.

	"I pity the fool who fired at me, the Ahkmet emperor will have the entire squadron killed that the archer is in.  'Tis a shame to waste such talent, 'tis the truth, it is a shame to waste so many lives.

	"But what does it matter now?  My loving dragons are taking revenge for my life, I can tell from the screams on the other side of ri-"Gasping with the pain of shattered bones and internal damage that she can feel for only a second, Rowan tries to roll herself into a ball but cannot even move one of her fingers.  Soon she can no longer see, and feels only the cold of death that is consuming her body.

	On the abandoned field, a ring of people gather in a wide band to witness a sight that they hoped never to see -- the death of one of their leaders.  Soon, tears of disbelief and silent wails of despair fill the peoples eyes, and roll down their smoke blackened faces.  Breaking the ring, a man in blood stained, silver armor and a woman in the sheer, midnight blue; flowing vestments of the High Priestess of the Shizen slowly walk in synch with each other.  Their bearings one of a funeral procession for an honored nation now dead: full of honor and iron pride.  All sounds seem to flee the scorched battle grounds as the two reach the prostate figure in the center of the ring, leaving only the sound of labored breathing coming from Rowan.

	Slowly, the priestess kneels at Rowan's side, taking up her hands and kissing Rowan's knuckles with lips and tears.

	"I was...wondering....how long ...... both of you were .... going to stand there."  The effort of talking that Rowan made started a trickle of blood flowing from her mouth, stirring raking coughs as her lungs struggled for air.

	"Oh my, Pet, this wasn't supposed to happen," weeping with the knowledge of a prophecy that was not fulfilled, the sorrow at losing her sister, and the self pity and jealousy of knowing that she -- Christy, The High Priestess of the Shizen -- could never have the respite of death until the prophecy was fulfilled.  "Are you in much pain?  Is there anything that I can do?"  Christy spoke only to relieve the pain that she felt, and Rowan understood that her sister did not want or expect an honest answer.

	"N-no.  I-I just wanted...to see b-both of you...before I leave.  Dar-rion?  Where are you?"

	"I'm here, Rowan," sitting on the ground, the man in armor picks up Rowan and holds her in his lap, resting her head on his already blood stained shoulder.  "You're cold, Brat.  What's the matter, can't take an arrow in the stomach and falling from the dragons high peak altitude?  I can't say that I blame yo-"

	"You....you don't have...to be b-brave for me, Darion," whispered Rowan, staring at his bare neck with blind eyes.  "I just wanted ... to say....I will return,....but that....it will not be....for ma-many years.  I have....two favors to...a-ask of you."  Starting to cough up blood, Darion holds Rowan tighter to him.

	"Anything, you know that I will do anything for you."

	"The dragons.....ta-take the dragons.... to the Forbidden....Valley.  Tell the-them.... to wait for....my return."

	Gasping, Christy began to protest, "but the dragons-"

	"N-no!  They are... no longer n-needed..... by our ... people."

	Feeling her body weaken by the second, but the will of her spirit growing stronger, Darion hurries to ask Rowan for her other favor before she becomes one of the un-dead that hunt in the cities at night.  "What of your other request, Rowan?  Is it something that you need before you die?"

	"Iie, Onni-san,....what I need .... is TO die.  I can't....un-unless you kill...me."  Hearing her siblings in-drawn breaths, Rowan hurries her request.  "P-please, Darion, ju-just take my sword....and p-plunge it through...my heart....into ...th-th-....ground."

	"You know that I cannot do that for you, Rowan; someone will steal the sacred Sword of the Dragon Master."

	"Sh-shut-up!"  Struggling now for breath, her lips beginning to become blue, "y-you would have me....endure th-this suffering....th-throughout eternity...as an un-un-dead?  Y-you kn-know better, Darion.  I know...that you KN-NOW..... about the sword.  None can touch it....except for ...me.  Ju-just let me die brother."

	Frustrated with the inability to save his sisters life, Darion can see no other alternative than to comply with her wishes, then lays her on the blood drenched and fire scorched earth.

	"Ch-Christy?  Tell....tell the priestesses....tell them to never....for-forsake hope."

	"We will always have hope, Rowan."  Acknowledging her brothers aversion to goodbyes -- even when they are temporary-- Christy leans down and kisses her sisters blood stained, blue lips good bye.

	"I love you both," Rowan thought with a fogged mind, no longer able to talk as the lethargy takes over her mind.

	A roar of rage and sadness that echoes off the distant hillsides erupted from Darion as he lifts the Sword of the Dragon Master above his head and plunges it down through his sisters heart and into the dead earth beneath her.  Looking down upon the face of her sister, Christy witnesses the most bittersweet smile of peace transform their sisters face before her body disintegrated into mist and entered the Sword of the Dragon Master.
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	For two thousand years, Rowan did not return to Aqearian, leaving both her immortal siblings with the fear that she would never return, despite her oath to come back.  Then one day, Christy heard of dragon activity that was not in the mist shrouded, Forbidden Valley.  Two dragons had taken a newborn child from a mother who had just given birth a few days earlier.  The child's father accused his wife of adultery, for their child looked like no one from either his or his wife's family.  The girl child had the silver hair, blue eyes, and the glowing mark of the Shizen.

	His wife had lain with a priest of the Shizen, he claimed, for it was told in all of the great stories that only a priest could father the heiress and savior of Aqearian.  He was willing to give the child to the priestesses of the Shizen, but his wife would never let her baby go willingly.  She fled with her daughter to escape the prophecy that her daughter was supposed to fulfill, but her husband hunted her down with his soldiers and tried to kill her for disobeying his wishes.  At that moment, two silver dragons swooped down and took the child away with them to the Forbidden Valley and the mystical palace of the High Priestess of the Shizen, leaving the mother to the mercies of her husband, mercies that her husband did not have.
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