Wail

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vii.

Once upon a time, there was a girl.  Her hair was red as a pale summer rose, and her smile was as soft as silence.  The girl lived alone at the center of a vast labyrinth.  Before her stood a boy, and the boy was tall and cold as stone, and he condemned her recklessness with a voice as smooth and dark and heavy as a thundercloud.  But the girl found courage, and stood straighter, and condemned him in turn, for his own safety was worth no less than hers.  Then the boy looked at her, and smiled a small, secret smile, and his voice was as still and bright and shining as a mirror-pond.  He confessed the dragon slain, and the danger gone, and he held out his hand to the girl and beckoned to show her.  And the girl looked at him, and smiled a small, sacred smile, and fell trusting into his arms.

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