Heavily burdened by her harp, her spears, and, most of all, her new armor--scale mail leafed with copper in a way sugestive of flames eaping and licking around her femenine form--Sorsha O'banon made the long tromp towards Orlane.<br/><br/>She and her father and their dog used to wander from festival to festival all the time, before age caught up with her father, and she found herself no longer able to ignore her gifts from Brigitte, or the obligations that came with them.<br/><br/>She still cringed away from the memory of her disasterous first battle.  Oh, the village was liberated, but at the cost of her dog and her innocence.  She was the villages hero, now, could have been their protector and their new village priest if the place didn't give her nightmares of what had happened to her...<br/><br/>Of the four half-goblin babes now taken in by that village and the knowlege that she could easily have borne a fifth.<br/><br/>She told herself it was duty to Brigitte in return for the boon of shielding her womb through her captivity that drove her to seek another village in need to liberate, but Sorsha new, in the quite of her own heart where only she and the goddess of fire could go, that she was driven by fear and shame now.  Fear of not being strong enough again had become a merciless lash that drove her hear, in search of ways to test and prove herself, and in search of friends to protect her.<br/><br/>Though she still trudges along much slower than she would have once skipped down the road, each day the burden of the armror grew a little lighter.  Each day the harp and the spears rested on her shoulders with a little more ease.  Each day she hid from the fear and shame and pain a little better, weaving a fantasy that she was a young heroine, seeking to make a legend 'til she almost believed it.