She wandered down the street, clutching her thin shawl. Her eyes darted to and from each empty window, so sure that they were watching her....

She was cold. So very cold. Her fingers were ice against her face, as she swept away a strand of thin silver hair tossed by a nonexistent wind. She was so cold. Her feet scuffed the dark street, lit by oddly colored lights. There was no end. She could not see through the thickening mist gathered in front of her; she squinted, sure that they were waiting for her. They had always been waiting for her....watching....

A weak beam of silver light pooled across a bed where a girl lay, breathing softly. She breathed so softly, that not even the grey cat curled up around her neck felt her warm breath. Her halo of short, silver hair fanned across a face that was distorted, almost frowning in a silent snarl. She moaned for a second, and passed a clammy hand over her eyes. The cat started, looking disgruntled. It pawed at the bed-spread, and curled up once again, but this time in the crook of the girl's arm. She sighed, and her face took on a look of resignation. Her dream held fast.

The leather chair situated directly next to the bed held a lanky figure, sprawled out the wrong way so that its head rested on one arm, and the crooks of its knees rested on the other. It stirred, suddenly alert. The wind had died down. The house was silent. Too silent.

The figure stood, careful to stand tiptoe on the creaky floorboards. It didn't want to wake the girl and cat. They needed rest. The figure stepped into the faint light, casting a shadow upon the wall. The cat opened an eye, curious about the change in atmosphere. Satisfied that it was only the Lady, it closed its eye and took on all the appearances of being asleep.

The Lady padded softly across the room to the door. She paused, uncertain of whether or not to leave the silver-haired girl alone. She closed her eyes and was still for several moments. Yes, there was something wrong. She had to leave the room.

She was small. Well, small in comparison to the girl on the bed. She was a Guardian. And guardians had to be invisible. They had to be small, yet capable of guarding their charge. And they stood their ground till the very end.

It was now one of those times that the Lady needed to be particularly small—the danger that she sensed was limited in its sight, losing no time to details. It was a storm. Its aim: to destroy the house that the Lady , the girl, and the cat all were in, including its inhabitants. But it didn't know about the Lady. It sensed the girl, weak and in a particularly vulnerable dream state. It saw its chance to obey the orders of its creator, and plunged with no hesitation. The gale-force winds swept across the fields in the back, thunder and lightning turning every tree to ash. It churned and thrashed, speeding towards the house. There was nothing to block its path--

Terria ashta!

The storm suddenly seemed to halt in its path, and expand outward as if it had to take a gulp of air.

It collapsed in on itself in a matter of seconds, leaving nothing but a very, very hot piece of stone. Storm-stone. All of the winds in the storm were commanded to pull so tightly together that they compressed all of the debris that they had collected into a sort of stone, and when there was too much friction around the compressed earth and debris, the winds, in thermo-induced lethargy, simply floated away. The power holding the storm together was nothing in comparison to the Lady's. It was just a test. A test against the defenses of the girl.

The Lady slumped into a squashy armchair, surveying the path of destruction in the wake of the storm. She sighed.

They know. They are watching us now. We have to get moving. I must tell the Sister.

This is simply the beginning. I am on a roll, and I even have an outline! Please tell me if you think it is even worth following up. Good first chapter, no? R&R! I love reviews. And I take them seriously.