Eat of my deep earth, drink of my living streams, for I am your Mother. Your heart is my wild drum, your breath my eternal song. If you would live, dance with me!

How can he do this? If you were mine, I would fight to keep you. I would die, before I let you go.

After a while, footsteps sounded on the flagstones outside and there was a gentle tap at the door. Of course, one of them would come. So close were we, the seven of us, that no childhood injury went unnoticed, no slight, real or imagined, went unaddressed, no hurt was endured without comfort.

I thought of betrayal and how it came so easily - in a word, a glance, a gesture.

She had sacrificed her childhood to save her brothers; she loved her family above all else, and her spirits yearned to return home once more, to the wild forest and the land of mystic tales and ancient spirits whence he had taken her. That was the place of her heart, and if he loved her, he must let her go.

With respect," said Red, and his voice had gone so quiet people hushed each other to hear him, "my tale is yet unfinished; you should hear me out. And it is her answer I have come to hear, not yours.

Our strength comes from that magic, from the earth and the sky, from the fire and the water. Fly high, swim deep, give back to the earth what she gives you.