[Atop a towering rocky spire, a slender young human girl kneels. Her eyes are closed and she hums softly, as she waits for that familiar breeze to reach her, and carry her heart's words aloft to the sunlit realm far above.]

My Queen and Mistress. Come and hear me for I have many things I would share. Things you must already know, and things I hope I have not been able to hide from your watchful gaze.

The world below is a cruel place. One that I try to bring the light of your smile to at every occasion. I have much success, and the sharing of your love continues to bring me both peace and solace even in these dark places. Yet also, the things that dwell comfortable in the shadow remain aligned to tear all my good intentions to the ground.

But I have a dark confession to share with you, my sweet Silverymoon. A confession that pangs my very being with guilt and chagrinn. As I watched the will of those that would destroy me come together in the shudder of blast and unquenching fire of their making sweep through the halls where your eyes watched from stony likeness, I could not help but feel a sense of relief.

Freedom, My Queen, for I have long lamented in silence. For as it is forbidden for we of the your flock to be tied and bound, yet have I felt it for longer than I care to share. Bound by responsibility to those that depend on me. Bound by affectionate loyalty to those whose dreams I lent my aid to give flight. And bound by the duties that they delivered to me in their absence.

I have wished for nothing more in the past days than to simply run unshackled and independent into the darkness without the walls of the Sanctuary and hide, where none could find me. So I could once more take to the quiet wind of fancy and travel unburdened again. But this is known to you, for my heart speaks openly to you at all times.

My guilt however, stems from darker springs. Because I watched him do it. I watched my tailed companion of the past, laboring effortfully and dutifully to destroy and smash asunder this singular place that has held my soul in dreadful bondage. Why was it only he who could feel my pain? Why not Dell, who has professed care complete for me. Why could he not simply release me from that which has caused me to become so desperate for flight?

And as the flames that shattered the form of the temple that has captured and bound my soul began to quench, again the tailed devil came. In plain sight of me once more, staring defianty as he brought his magic to continue the blaze. And I struck out at him, and asked you to join me in it. But I swear above all things that my heart was not in it. That is the black core of my guilt, My Queen. I could not bring myself to be truly vengeful, for I know that he labored in this to free me. After I have shunned him and banished him from my sight in word and deed, it is he that was delivered as my Angel of Liberation.

Forgive me for bearing these dreadful tidings that dwell within me, but between us there can be no secrets. And for the first time in my short life, even though I once again feel free and light as a feather, I cannot be sure that my heart is leading me on the right path. Come to me and guide me in your mysterious and benevolent ways, that I do not further lose myself. It is this which I have come to pray to you. Hear me...

I shall continue to struggle to bring the light to these dark places, but never again will I be bound, this I swear to you.

[The young girl rises to her feet slowly, dusting herself off, and glancing down to the darkness far below. She smiles softly, as the gentle breeze begins to fade, and her dark hair once again becomes calm and motionless in the stilling air.]

[As the wind calms and the slopes grow terribly silent, a distant, but clear word, in a chillingly familiar voice, echoes in your ears. The reverberations seem to originate more in the confines of your mind than the infinite cavern surrounding.]

.... Mylin .....

[and the world resumes its hush]

[The young girl lays calmy on the stone plateau, bathed in the eerie purple light that glows from the silent spires and rocks of the peaceful cavern. She stares up at the blackness above, her eyes wide and dangling from them lines of her dried tears.]

I confessed it to him. To Dell. All the hurt I have been feeling, and the guiltiness I have harbored these long past days. And he listened hard, and I thought we might have put it behind us. I was wrong.

He has abandoned me. Shunned me for my weakness, and my lack of fortitude. He put upon me monikers of all my shortcomings, and spoke to me that my innocence and light was gone for all time.

I heard his angry words, and saw my own reflection in his helmet shaded eyes, and I wonder if there isn't some truth to it. For you and I both know I have done things that, at the time I justified with my good intentions, but in the end many of them were wicked acts. And intentions or no, my soul bears the weight of their damage.

Am I lost? I don't feel that I am. I feel light and unshackled, though sad for the precious friendship lost, maybe forever. But I am certain that this will be something I look back upon with great regret, and I can't help but feel a pang of residual anger that does not rest.

For now, my mind circles around laboring to bring life back to the Dream I shared with Michael and Dell, long before these trying times wracked me. Long before Michael abandoned the dream and left, and before Dell stepped aside to let the weight of responsibility imprison my soul.

And worse, I feel betrayed. All this time I have endeavored to protect and aid in it. I strived with all my breath to keep the drowning idea of hope alive in that place, and in the end he punishes me for it. He punishes me because I lacked the wisdom to know exactly what to do. He punishes me because I have realized that I am not meant for such things. He punishes me, because a yearned to fly from the gilded bards of bondage that he allowed to encase me.

Perhaps it is true then, could I have lost my innocence after all? The emotions are all so chaotic and confusing, and I only know my heart hasn't died because of all the sharp pain that grips it. I pray that it passes, before I truly do lose myself.

I know you hear me, and I know my sadness has gone aloft to you, and troubles you as you share my despair. Please, help me free myself from it. I want to smile once more, without feeling I decieve.