Title: Through Time IV:  Semper Fidelis (1/1)
Author: RocketMan >lbontger@wmcstations.com<
Disclaimer: M&S belong to CC, past lives are mine, and simper fidelis
is, I know, the motto of the Marines. But I think it's appropriate for
them.
Notes: Semper Fidelis means always faithful.
Pieces taken from Braveheart. Thanks. CHARACTER DEATH

Semper Fidelis (1/1)

AD 220
Persia (at the end of the Parthian Empire's reign)

Civil wars were breaking out all around them, and Darius did not know
how to protect his family from the fighting. Especially since he had two
daughters, both of eligible age, and both quite pretty with light hair
and blue eyes. Their mother had been just as exotic looking.
His older daughter he did not worry about, but his younger, Dani, was
quiet and stubborn. She wouldn't settle down, take a husband or even
worship with the family anymore. She roamed the hills on her roan horse,
named Roan, quite unimaginably, and stayed out even when it rained. Her
disdain of custon left Darius in shock and she always told her father
that she would never marry a man who had other wives.
Women just didn't speak out like that to their fathers. Men were
supposed to have a lot of wives. That's how you did it.
Dani didn't understand.
******* 
He saw her in the crowd around the market, her light brown hair like a
beacon of light washing over him.
He knew of her, had even talked with her, but it had been a long time
ago, before the wars, before the horribleness that came with it.
She wouldn't recognize his man's body, nor understand the pain in his
eyes. She was a women, not a warrior and he had nothing of interest to
her. He was war-sick and unsteady and his friends wanted nothing to do
with him.
The Fox they had called him. In the beginning of the war. He was fast
and smart and knew how to kill expertly.
Too many deaths, too many lives.....
He wasn't the Fox anymore.
He hated hearing the name, now.
He wished he could speak with her, to let her healing eyes touch him.
*******
Dani saw him, the Fox Moran, the one little boy who had said anything to
her after he mother had died. She'd been three. He'd been seven. Would
he even remember her? She watched him walk through the crowds of
starving men and ill fed children and she felt her heart squeeze at his
pain. She saw the sensitiveness in his eyes, the way he could not turn
his head from the poor.
She wanted to heal his pain, to build that fire of compassion higher in
him.
He started closer to her.
Her smile was bright.
And then her sister took her away - back to their mud brick home.
She had missed him. 
*****
She heard a horse coming over the ridge, the unmistakable echo of hooves
on soaking wet sod.
Her heart leaped with the sound of freedom.
She heard her father yelling through the rain to someone and she pulled
away from the fire and to the doorway.
It was Moran.
The Fox.
Her heart thudded.
He lifted his hand to her and before she knew it, she was dashing
through the rain and flying onto his horse.
*******
A week later.
*******
"Dani, I have to go back to war." he whispered into her hair.
She started and turned her angry eyes to him. "Why?!" she moaned. "You
were just starting to get over that horrible thing! Why now!"
"They think I'm fit for duty. Dani.....the Empire's falling apart. I
have to help."
"Let it fall apart."
"I want to keep you safe."
"I won't be safe with you halfway around the empire." she said, pushing
her body closer to his.
"I'll come back, I promise." he said and stroked her thighs.
She shivered and her eyes turned to see his. His dark rich brown met her
shocking blue and he engraved the image forever into his mind.
"Don't go, please. Don't go."
He shook his head. "I'll come back. I promise."
"You can't promise that. You could die out there."
"I won't. I won't. I'm too good. The Fox."
"Even foxes are finally caught by the hounds."
"Dani, you aren't making this easy."
"Run away, Moran. Run away with me. Don't go back. Please don't go."
"Dani....." his words were a sigh.
"Please......I love you...."
Her face, once so stubbornly set on keeping him was now tightly draw
into fear.
She hadn't told him before that she loved him.
His smile broke free from the fear in himself.
"You do?"
She buried her face in his chest. "Of course. Don't go."
"Dani....I have to."
She wouldn't cry. She promised herself she wouldn't cry.
"Okay......but do come back. Come back and then we can be together."
He held her tightly and reached into his pocket pouch. His hands closed
around a small carved figure, the wood marks still fresh and yellow.
He pried loose her fingers from his shirt and placed it into her hands.
She saw the carved animal through blurry eyes, still attempting to hold
back the tears.
"A fox....." she murmured.
"Read the bottom..."
She turned it over.
*Semper fidelis* 
"Always faithful..." he whispered.
******
Three months later
******
Her father came into the room used for cooking with a man of about forty
at his heels. He was a messanger, carrying special commands throughout
the army. He looked haggard and he greedily gulped down the meal Dani
set before him.
Then he turned his swollen, bloodshot eyes to her.
"Are you Dani of Darius?"
She nodded and clutched the carved fox in her pocket, fear bubbling up
in her.
"I have a message from The Fox." he said, coughing a bit.
Her lips went dry. Was he dead? Had he sent her a message in his last
words?
"The Fox says to meet him under your tree." Then the old man broke out
in wheezing. When he caught his breath he shook his head, "But, Dani, I
wouldn't pay no mind to it, because, little Fox died right after he said
that."
Her heart stopped beating.
<oh....gods....no please...no>
Dead.
He said he'd be faithful; he'd come back to her.
......their tree......
She shot up and ran for the door. He said he'd meet her. He had sent the
message to her. He'd be there, right?
He couldn't be dead.....he couldn't. The foolish, sick man had been
lying, or crazy, or fooling around.
He just couldn't be dead.
There it was. Their tree.
Heavy hanging branches that dripped rain like tears, as if the tree knew
of the news and was in mourning also.
She collapsed under it and felt whatever hope she'd had drain away from
her.
He was gone.
She leaned her head back and felt hot salty tears cascade over her
cheeks, and make a ineffectual splash in the already soaked grass at her
side.
He was gone.
...........................semper........fidelis.............................
Her head snapped up.
Had that been his voice for real, or the desperation in her mind
projecting it to the soft wind in the tree?
..........................always..........faithful...........................
It had to be her imagination.
She sat up a little more and glanced around.
Her eye caught a shiny piece of metal in the ground.
She picked it up, brushing off the grass with her fingers and rubbed it
on her dress hem.
It was a ring.
A silver wedding ring with the words *semper fidelis* inscribed on the
band.
She slipped it on her finger and let herself cry.
Always faithful........even unto death.

end,
adios
RocketMan