Distracted, entranced, mystified by those eyes. Raising my shield, receiving strike after strike, blow after blow. Hearing him, grunting, gasping, and... cursing in a foreign tongue. Letting him tire himself with his frenzy of stabs and strikes. Watching his movement…knowing he can not last much longer…the heat… the armor. and then it is decided. I lower my sword, dropping the shield and I simply wait. I am grazed and nicked over a half dozen times in this melee. Letting the blood flow, minimal. “You haven’t promised anyone you wouldn’t, have you?”I shook my head, “No, I haven’t.”“Then would you please take me up to my bed and make love to me?”I nodded, got up from the couch, walked over to her, scooped her in my arms and carried her to bed. We made love slowly and gently, and I concentrated on showing Jos my deep love for her, and when we finished, Jos was crying softly.“You OK?” I asked.She sniffed and nodded, “I just needed to know you still loved me.”I pulled her tightly to me and. X grunted, and slipped slowly back into his lamp. I opened the door to the attic and walked away, down the stairs, ready to get to work.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------"Bella!" I shouted, exceptionally happy to see her today. The day before, she'd been sick, and I had hit a hard case of sadness thinking about my dad. She saw me and smiled. "Hi Mike!" She said, yelping when I hugged her. "Oh, geez! Mike, I'm still sick..." She sniffled,. It was one her mother had sung to her many times. Her mother had said it was an old Celtic tune that was used for the acrostic poems that told the story of the warrior queen.Acrostic! The first letters of each line spelled something. Great-wise-every-now-long-loud-in-again-now... “Now is the time to call her name.” Cassie was saying to call out Gwenllian’s name. Laura shouted out, “Queen Gwenllian!” Then she remembered the way that her mother had spoken of her ancestor. “Mother of my mother’s.