Author's notes: Although this is my third attempt at a science fiction, I do think that it will have a more fantasy quality, rather than a scientific quality. Time will tell. Chapters will be added, and eventually revised into one section.

Chapter one:

She danced.

Her hair flowed with a mind of it’s own; fine gossamer strands the color of sunset. As she twirled, it tossed about on the churning currents of air. There would be no end to that flowing energy.

She danced.

The pale ivory skin was slicked with perspiration, beaded with glinting drops of her essence. Perfect imperfections were sprinkled across her nose; individual beauty. Her lips were faultless, neither too full nor too slim.

She danced.

There was a wild fire alight within her clear brown eyes. Emotion of the kind that eluded everyday use was making itself visible. They were wide and rolling, frantic in their exercise.

She danced.

Lithely, she moved, nimbly avoiding the churning of the dirt that marked the striking of the finely crafted bullets. She followed a line of dance that seemed lawless. She moved without inertia: she was free and she was perfect.

Still, she danced.

The crashing of gunpowder grew louder and her dancing reached a new pitch. Her feet floated over the ground, her eyes closed in total concentration. Long ago, there had been tales of those who danced as she did. Never in the recent years had anyone seen or heard of one.

She stopped.

In truth she did not stop. Her movements increased in such speed that she slipped from the visible world altogether. She was a blur of movement, her body only to be seen in the fragmented imaginations of the viewers, struggling to comprehend what they were seeing.

He knew.

He knew she had not stopped. He did not wonder why the bullets seemed to pass through her head, to pass through her heart without causing injury. He knew what her arrival meant. He signaled to the Orchestra to end the performance. Slowly each member squeezed out the remaining bullets, the crashing thunder of the guns dying into ringing echoes.

She stopped. The strands of fiery light that billowed about her face did not. They had a mind of their own. Nothing moved but that mass of glinting fire.

Time was suspended, until she opened those clear brown eyes.

Droplets of salt water that had been hovering while she had been dancing finally dropped earthbound. A cloud of dust swirled furiously about her feet, then settled abruptly to the ground. Wind whipped around her body, tugged fitfully at her clothes, then vanished. Accompanying the wind was a noise like the pounding of bare feet upon the ground. It faded with the air.

He had found her at last.

None of the Orchestra moved, and neither did he. The girl before them emitted one shaky breath and crumpled to the ground. No one moved to help her. After several moments she gasped and stood.

In her hand she held a twisted dagger, glinting with blood the color of the most exquisite rose. Her hand trembled as she held forth the weapon, revealing a brilliant gash sliced across her forearm.

The burnished gold dagger had been crafted by her as she moved. With incredible skill she had directed the speeding golden bullets into their present form.

He moved to take it.

-----

Long ago, before man had forgotten his roots, She had been there. Before even the time of the coldest snows and the longest winters, She had been there. In the sparkling cities, the magnificent countries of ancient times, She had been there.

Lore said that those such as she were destined for terrors beyond anything that could be dreamt by mortals. They were born under foreign stars, raised beneath night skies the likes of which no living man had seen. Their arrival always marked a dangerous time for the people, but their presence guaranteed success and survival.

For now, the distant past was as much a fable as the distant future. The dangers that lurked on the horizon promised bad times to all; and perhaps in the end, even the cockroaches will lie immobile and lifeless upon the barren ashes of the planet.

The King pondered his new weapon, which burnished into brass as the blood was impossibly absorbed into the metal. Off in the moonlight, some ways away, She gazed at the sky. Her eyes were focused upwards, away from the dealings of men. Hey eyes softened, and as they did so the heavens swung into motion. The disk of the universe rotated about its axis, and time caressed his cheek with a trembling hand. All around him, the acrid air carried death on its back. Red dust billowed into a churning black out, and when it settled, the Orchestra and camp was no more – only he and She left to gaze at the barren bones and corroded metal. Above, the stars were snuffed out, one-by-one, and the heavens descended in a blackened cloth.

Only if they failed, he realized. Only if they failed.