The knight walked up to blue quiet lake.. He gazed into the edge of the water. He knew of the magic it held, its wisdom and its age and spoke aloud to it. For some how he knew it held his answers... some how he knew she would respond...

     "I don't know if you remember my poetic heart. But tonight I remembered you and your strength... Tonight I cried a tear once again in the remembrances of your core put to voice.." he began.

     "Dragons have been tearing at my flesh, and my bones ache in the response to the attack...." he continued "A child's dreams have near ended and tragedy of self has destroyed.. Funny how we fight on through our lives.. Daily noticing little things about people that some take for granted..The kind thought or spoken memory that changes a persons outlook and touches a lonely heart.. Tonight the memory of you did that for me .... When I needed it most, your words were there for me as they once were before... Only this time they were the ghosts of words you spoke long ago.. The impact was still as fresh today as it was then.. I cried tears of heart.. I gained a strength that only a heart touched core can grow..." The knight paused for a moment pondering his thoughts....

     "Sometimes during our journeys through life, paths cross for one reason or another. Sometimes people never know why and some times they are blessed with the knowledge of what truly is.. Today I know what truly is... and that is that Love can be touched fully and can be retouched from time to time to give strength, just as well as hurts that have happened can come back to haunt our lives...

     Your words of beauty and insight into me have given to me once the strength to go on... To fight yet another battle.   I pull the sword of reality from my open wound.  It didn't matter of the angry dragons breath that sits in darkness waiting to jump forth.. For in strength, I had gained all that the dragon destroyed ..... That strength came from you.... A kind word spoken months ago in response to the cries of a child hiding from the pain in some dark cave... Your words spoke of her strength and her inner beauty....

     I today remember you and all you have done with your touch of heart.... You pulled the sword of reality from my open wound.   But now I am scorched again,  I am feeling a welling up inside me, telling me I am not good that I should have done better... I need your touch of love to my core ...... it has an amazing quality of healing, warmth and chills all at once .... I thank the day that my journeys led me to cross paths with you before, I need you now, and I wish that they may cross again...."

     The brave knight sat on a nearby stone looking out into the silent vastness of the large lake.. He waited in equaled silence. He had spoken the words of his heart. He had told the Lady of the Lake his deepest thoughts and waited for her response. He had the time now. He had nothing but time. For it didn't matter anymore... For all that mattered to him was now lost.

     As it began to grow dark he heard a movement in the water. He turned to look as a specter appeared. The image of a beautiful woman in flowing white wisps of air stood above the water looking to him.. He bowed in respect to her..

     "Pulling swords of reality from open wounds". Oh, brave knight; that is so painful to hear, Your words are like music flowing as rivers into the stars. They are always your greatest defense. The music flows over the wounds, cleansing and healing.." Spoke the angelic voice from the mist.

     "Painful as the words sound, they do not compare to the ache in my heart right now.. the Loss of the peace of my heart that can never be replaced.. Even the Stars weep tonight..." he replied mournfully..

     "The dragon which tears at me is all but extinct now but the steam of the caves still rise as the flames of the the dragon's breath subsides..." he added "As you know the dragon was a very evil beast of manipulations unequaled.. The pain from the wounds it tore are un-healable and are torn open over and over again in the battles... I do not want to kill the dragon, but just release the little princess of the spell that it cast upon her. But she has become the dragon and is no longer princess enough to be set free of the enchantment.  I have given up the battle, but the dragon is the one who loses in the end..  And with the loss of the dragon also is lost the chance of ever seeing our princess as she was again.   Life does not allow this story a happy ending..."

     He settled back to his place by the stone.  As the image of divine wisdom seemed to shake her head she faded from his sight. He was too blinded by his own hurt and grief to allow the vision of the Lady to any longer manifest and speak to his soul.

     Alone the knight dropped to his knees and threw the sword away. "God" he prayed,  "Bless the princess that is now in your hands": Help to let the dragon lie dormant" The knight lowered his head and sobbed. The moonlight watched from over his head..  Not laughing as it once did..  But was also sad for the princess.. And the dragon within.

     He sat there full of the overwhelming grief he felt for a while.  Rising, he looked back over his shoulder to the cave one last time. Taking a deep breath he sniffed and wiped at a final remaining tear for his princess.  He observed the remaining steam of the dragon's breath from the entrance of the cave...

     He remembered the good times when the princess was young and naive.. the fair petite child laughing and playing in the sunlight..  Now doomed to an eternity with the demons of the cave..


     Without direction the knight turned away numb. He wandered aimlessly along the edge of the darkness of the forest near the lake. "With no more dragons to tame what is left?" He called out to the darkness. He yelled curses to the dragons for their enchantment.

     No princess, no kingdom... he wondered what now?... What is left for the knight to do..? To him, this night, his armor felt very heavy for the first time.. His burdens gone but still weighing heavily upon his mind.. What now for the princess? No one to help her to fight back the demons of her cave. No one to help free and separate the dragon from her... No one to keep her safe..

     Nothing left for a knight when there are no more princesses to save or dragons to fight.. No need of a knight now.. No purpose... no reason.. No fight.. No heart.. nothing...

     The knight bent to scoop a drink from the lake and as he raised the front of the helmet he noticed his reflection had begun to fade from within the armor... Part of him was fading away... He knew he was still there. He felt the loneliness and sadness but yet something was missing. The reflection of who he was seemed lost ....

     Would he ever again see the face he had grown so familiar with?.. Was he too, something that no longer existed something not needed?.. As the dragon and the princess were fading from his life; did he now fade from his own, into the darkness of the deep dense woods... Would he ever be able to fight again?. Or had the Dragon's venom sucked his last drop of life's blood from him as it searched to destroy itself..

     Somehow he knew that with the loss of his being, he now held the heaviness of his heart in his hands.. He thought about it never being the same... As what made him the knight that he was, now was no more...

     The knight took off his armor and heaved it into the lake... "No need of armor now... no need of strength.... No need for fight.." he cried out with the sound of his defeat and agonies heavy upon him..

     He knew that societies beast had destroyed the world that he fought so hard to keep, to protect.. As he again turned to the water. He could see he no longer existed at all but in his mind's eye.... "It is over" he thought aloud "It is finally over"..

     He fell to the ground invisible to his self. Feeling as if he was nothing. He was but a feeling of forlorn sadness.. Finally, the knight slept.  Again in his dreams she was there... The Lady... to spoke again to his resting soul:

     "Your dedication to the princess.... though the last three years have been excruciating, as has been your life, and even without the dragons of your past being breathed back into life by her manipulations, now to have that search for the Grail removed, your journey halted in your steps, must be terrifying. How to find your way, not back, but to a journey of healing for the weary, fraying, torn parts of you wrenched from your core? If there is still need of the knight, his mission must alter now to face the man drained of all but the poisoned river now. You must face yourself, dear knight, peer deeply into your own eyes, and seek the spark that still glimmers there. "

     "I look But I cannot see into myself? How can I go on alone? I am too weary now" he pleaded for an answer.

     "Lead yourself, but let all of us who love you hold your hand and walk beside you." she answered him.... And with that the dream faded away....

     When the knight awakened in the morning he remembered clearly the spoken words of his dream and he pondered them for a while as he found his food and ate. He rested and nursed his wounds. Though unseen to others, he knew somewhere he must still exist.. Not gone as he thought.. He moved to a clearing and felt a warm rain as it began to fall from the sky.. He thought that even the skies wept in sorrow for the loss of the princess. As he looked high into the the darkness of the clouds, a large streak of light seemed to make the clouds shimmer in silver. And as he watched a full rainbow appeared in the sky... A rare precious sight for his eyes to see. He watched it for nearly an hour there in the rain... A beautiful sight indeed. He thought about the meaning of the sign from the heavens.. And wondered what it could mean. Again he rested.. As the rain subsided he went again to the Lake and spoke to it’s vastness.

     "Today I seen a huge full rainbow across the sky.. It reminded me of the promises of a long ago past.. I have always thought of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that contains all the riches to truly be the riches that one feels in their heart.  For only here can riches truly be.   Not bought or sold, only shared..  My friends hold the riches and are the richest people I know.  I feel rich when I am with them, for I am able to share with them and them with me.  I treasure these friends as my most precious gifts.  For they can lead me in the directions I need to go when I can no longer see the correct paths, while blinded with the self-doubt that I feel.  But they are far from me now.  I am glad for you being so close in my core. I pray you can help me remember my strengths as well as my weaknesses.  When the journey is so long I fall to the self-pity.. I do always try to come back with an unknown inner strength from my wounded core.. but this time...." he stopped mid sentence... He lifted his eyes to the lake...

     And once again in hearing the sound of the words from his heart the Lady appeared to him  floating lightly above the lake..  Again he listened to the wisdom that her soft angelic voice spoke to him..

     "You my dear knight will again find the strength to search for the grail. You will be able to see the reflections of your self, of the deeds you have done, in the others that have been touched by the love you have shared. You will again feel the lust for the fight with life and battle new and unknown dragons.. And if not dragons, then something else.. Though you are weary and must rest for a time and heal, your life is not over.."

   "But I feel I am finished as a knight. I have failed the princess, and am lost to myself,,I fear I will fail you also." he said.  Again he began feeling his agony of the recent wounds and  in them, the defeat of himself..

     "You have not lost, but gained.  In knowledge of self, in trust, in friends." the apparition said.

     "Now strangers and friends can't understand how I can just give up.. There is no winning in this..  Just more caves with more dragons to defeat...  Again I withdraw the sword of the harshest of realities from my heart and try to go on in the silence of the darkness that has now threatened to overcome my life...  She may not have been of my flesh, this princess, but she was mine none the less." he sighed heavily upon the admission of this.. and relaxed a bit. If I could not save her who am I to think myself worthy of being a knight.

     Again the vision spoke to him...as it began to turn once again to the mist of the water  "Please don't ever forget that in all the ways I and your friends have touched you ... you have touched others as well... Tears fall in sadness, yet cleanse the heart of decay.." With that she shimmered into the mist of the lake and disappeared.......

     He sat beneath the tall oak tree. It seemed to him hundreds of years old. He closed his eyes to the pain he felt. He tried to put aside the disappointments in life. He knew that though he was wounded that he would again heal.  

Day by day, he felt his strength coming back.. He knew he could not look back to the past and could not change the paths of others.. But he could still fight the good fight and search for the grail in a different place and in a different time.. Looking forward, instead of back..  He again closed his eyes and relished the pain.. For through this pain, there was humbling, there was growth, there was strength.

     He knew that winter would soon come, He thought about the great oak tree it will look like death is upon it. He watched it drop a piece of it's wonderful shade to the ground, leaf by leaf,till all have fallen. It will also drop acorns to sprout new life. A new nurturing life not only for growth, but as nourishment for all the creatures of the woods to help them survive the winter of painful colds.. Only then would come the new life that the spring brings..

Like the tree, he too again would bloom with life restored to his core.. To feel the life again within his now pained heart and soul..

As he lay there resting; his healing began...and his heart again gained the strength to go on....

read "A Knight's Quest"(Part II)