Paladin Of Souls

*Content you, woman. I do not desire the stones.* *I desire the road.* The realization startled, almost shocked her. It was a new thought. *A new thought, me?* All her old thoughts seemed as thin and ragged as a piece of knitting made and ripped out and made and ripped out again until all the threads were frayed, growing ever more worn, but never larger. But how could *she* gain the road? Roads were made for young men, not middle-aged women. The poor orphan boy packed his sack and started off down the road to seek his heart's hope... a thousand tales began that way. She was not poor, she was not a boy, and her heart was surely as stripped of all hope as life and death could render it. *I am an orphan now, though. Is that not enough to qualify me?*