My Mother puts her hand upon me, and I stir.

She lets me unfurl, though not fully. I stretch into my first form, the one she rarely uses. I can see, I can speak, but I cannot bite.

The others are with us. The ancient ones still yet slumber together, but she of mighty battle lays in her mother's arms, ready to speak and ready to smash. The two flowers lay in the hands of their father. They merely have a form for rest and a form for battle. They are unlike so many of the others I've seen. Simple.

Of course, the ancient ones are the simplest. Only the defender alters it's form, and only for rest. The biter merely bites. It does not speak. Neither speaks.

The boy who carries them is not their father. He is a descendant. On first meeting, he insulted them, named them hand-me-downs. Heirlooms would be a better word. Ancestral, more so. They have adopted him as father, as they did his father and his father's father before him. They guard their charge, for it is their duty.

Mother and I used to be with others. The half-blood and her twins, those who spoke only fire. The cat and her daughter of two faces. And the cold one, and her daughter of grace and poise, who spoke volumes whenever she opened her mouth.

That was before. Before Mother held the blade of the girl of many blades, before she turned the Lady against her mother, and saw the Gentleman be swallowed by the darkness alongside his father. Before a Twin was lost to the Roses of Revolution.

Before she saw the strange one, the glass one, kill the mother of the Speaker and the Listener.

The others are gone now. The cat fled while Mother was resting. The cold one was taken away by her father. The half-blood refused to leave the family home.

We could not find the Speaker or the Listener in the wreckage.

Those we travel with were those who fought alongside the dead mother. We seek the glass one and her mother, but the road is dangerous, for the darkness stands in our way.

Mother gives names to the darkness, but I do not speak them. They are all the same to me. Some fall to my words, some resist them. Some fall to my bites, and some need to hear me speak as I bite.

The darkness stands before us now.

The ancient ones awaken, and I speak. My words lay low a dark one, and another, and another. Mother works my bolt with a fury I have seen grow large over these months.

Click-clack BOOM click-clack BOOM click-clack BOOM.

I can only speak so quickly. The darkness draws near. Mother spins me, and I unfurl into my true form, graceful and powerful. I bite, I speak, I dance and the darkness falls.

This is my true place. I am a dancer, and my chosen stage is the battlefield. My Mother cannot dance without me, nor would I wish her to.

My opponent does not matter. Darkness, Mothers and Fathers, the soulless brethren.

Yes, I have a soul. My Mother's soul runs through me, protecting me, empowering me. She has a simple soul. She only wishes to do good.

The girl of many blades was one of the soulless brethren, but not. She was of metal, not flesh, and yet had a soul. No Mother, no Father, and Mother to her own daughters.

She fell in battle with the Speaker and the Listener. But she was not flesh. She can be returned to her beauty.

The dance is over. The battle is won, once again. My Mother is tired, but doesn't let it show. She cannot. She was the leader of her own team, and although that team is gone, she must show this new team that she is still strong.

And she is strong.

For she is the Rose. And I am her thorn.

And we shall not wilt.