This is something I just had an idea for, I’m not sure quite where it came from but it interested me so I decided it might be worthwhile making something out of, and this is what I got. If I get generally good reactions to it I might consider extending it, but for now it stands alone. Please review and give your opinions.

Disclaimer: I own it. . . okay, so maybe I stole a couple of names from Celtic myths, but I own the rest!

A smile flickered across Læthriel’s lips as he stared at his own reflection in the moonlit pool -- he looked like Hell; his eye was swollen and quickly growing a deep purple, while blood flowed freely from his stomach which he clutched gingerly with one hand, in the other, he held the helm of a sword, the blade of which had been broken off during the battle.

His head whipped round as he heard a faint whimpering coming from nearby. A small, shaking figure emerged from behind a tree.

‘Macha!’ he cried, recognising his daughter. She immediately ran towards him and leapt into his embrace. Læthriel yelped in pain, the girl stepped back, staring at her hands, covered in blood from the hole in her father’s stomach. Macha, being no more than three years old, did not understand the seriousness of her father’s injury.

‘Come, Papa, we’ll find Mama, she’ll make you all better.’ the small girl chirruped. Læthriel shook his head and chuckled. He cast his eyes over the tree-tops to the blood-stained sky, tainted by the inferno of carnage his wife could not escape. As he remembered her -- her lightening eyes, her musical laughter, it felt as if someone had reached through the wound in his stomach and wrenched at his soul.

‘Your eyes, they are filled with tears.’ Macha’s brow was stitched with innocent concern. Læthriel pulled himself back to reality, he was immediately aware of the throbbing pain now present throughout every inch of his body.

He knew he had to act quickly, already his head was swimming and his vision dulling.

‘Macha,’ he said, holding his child firmly, ‘I want you to listen very carefully, understand? And do exactly as I say. . . Macha!’ the girl had already become distracted by a paper-thin ,charred piece of what was once someone’s home, or shoe. . . or wife floating through the air. ‘Macha!’ his voice changed to a more severe tone, the girl paused and looked at him -- there was an ergency in his eyes which disturbed Macha, she had never seen her father so before. ‘Macha, please you must listen and do as I say no matter what.’ the cries of soldiers, if they could be called that, for they were little more than a blood-thirsty band of murderers, robbers and rapists, could be heard approaching through the forest and Læthriel’s strength was decreasing fast, ‘Macha, Macha. Now do as I say: I want you to run away, far far away, as far as you can go, Macha, and never turn back no matter what, not for me, not for your mother, not for anything. Macha,’ Læthriel’s grip tightened on his daughter as the ominous voices, as the tolling of the final bell, grew ever nearer, ‘Do you understand, Macha?’ The child’s expression was one of confused anxiety,

‘But I cannot leave you, Papa.’

‘Macha, you must do this for me, you must run.’ tears pricked his dimming eyes as he looked at his child for the last time.

‘Be good.’ he whispered, and with one last breath he kissed his daughter,

and died.

‘Papa. . . Papa.’ the girl whispered, shaking Læthriel’s body gently. he lip quivered and tears began to streamed down her cheeks; she did not understand, for a child to lose their father is to a man to lose god, something all-powerful and indestructible, gone. To Macha it was unfathomable --her entire world had been destroyed in the space of about fifteen minutes. what was she to do? Then she realised, her father’s words, he was talking about now, now was the time to use his advice. Ina, Macha’s mother had been a tribal woman from the western kingdoms but had been a renowned scholar and was known far beyond the village walls, now little more than smouldering ruins, for her vast knowledge and quick wit. And Macha had inherited her mind; a child any less sharp as she would have sat bawling in the forest until they were trampled by enemy hooves and ended up with their head mounted on a post, but macha could easily see the danger with was fast approaching. She reluctantly pulled herself from Læthriel’s lifeless embrace. There was no time to give him a full release ceremony, the enemy troops were almost upon her, so instead, with no precious treasures to give him to accompany him to the after-life, Macha plucked a single silver hair from her head and placed it in amongst his own faded brown locks, making their two selves one forever.

She then sprinted clumsily away through the thicket just in time to avoid the murderous soldiers entering the clearing. luckily, they did not catch her; but a young soldier could have sworn that he saw an angel disappear into the darkness.