It was scary.

Shattered Glass looked out the window at the fires consuming the city.

The nine year old child looked up and saw her father drawing their family sword and walking out the door to protect.

She looked at her mother's grim determination as she readied the family's muskets. Voices were heard from outside. Shouting voices.

Shattered heard her father's voice cut through the others. "TURN BACK, THERE IS NOTHING HERE FOR YOU. I WILL DEFEND MY FAMILY TILL THE END."

The only reply was a laugh and many gunshots. Shattered and her mother froze. Then started crying.

Soon, more sounds of death reached their ears. Simple men and women trying in vain to protect their families while the rebels tore through the town.

Soon there was a thud at the door. Shattered Glass's mother looked up, her hands glowing, trying to make steady the shield that protected their house.

Then with a sound, not unlike to Shattered's namesake, the door broke. Three rebels swarmed in. A women with an elaborate coat. two men with wings and one man without any special features. They surrounded the scared child and mother with swords and guns drawn.

"This one looks nice," said one of the winged men to their, supposed, leader "can't we have a bit of fun with her?"

"No," she replied "she is a unicorn. We can brainwash her into submission and have more soldiers for our army. Do whatever you want to the child though."

Shattered didn't know what she meant by "whatever you want" but the look on her mother's face told her it wasn't good.

Her mother threw up her hands, the magic glowing with the kind of anger that only a mother could drag up and prepared to cast a spell. The leader moved one hand in a dismissive gesture and her mother flew across the room, hitting a table hard.

Then all froze as they heard a voice. An old voice. One that promised death to its enemies and glory to its allies. One more ancient then the country they stood in. It spoke out, loud as a thunderclap and clear as a crystal. Everyone froze. They all felt the power behind the words and the will in the speech.

It said, "It is honorable to die for one's country, but true honor come from facing the enemy that threatens one's family. Rise heroes, like the phoenix and protect your home from destruction."

Then the fallen rose. Soldiers who were dead from gunshots moments earlier stood up, wings of flame rising from their backs. They stood with swords of righteous fire clasped in their hands.

Then they started to fight.

The rebels fell before their charge, cut down by fists, blades and magic.

Shattered's father burst through the door into the house. His eyes ablaze and sword aflame.

The first winged man fell quickly, a clean sword slash across the throat left him falling to the floor, his hands trying in vain to keep his blood inside his body.

The second winged man fell slower, parrying two strikes before taking a fist to the face that blew him clear across the room and through a stone wall. The third man tried to escape, only to be met by a blast of magic from the father. The man's skin browning at the intense heat thrown against him.

The leader was smart, and grabbed Shattered; and with a gun to her head yelled "Let me go or we see what color your daughter's brains are."

The father froze, almost unsure of what to do. His wife solved that problem for him.

With a shout of, "GET AWAY FROM HER YOU BITCH!" she magically propelled a kitchen knife through the leader's throat before collapsing again.

As the reunited husband and wife embraced each other in the joy of life, Shattered looked out the window. She had seen a flash of brown and wondered what it was.

She gazed at a man standing alone on a hill. The sun rising to his right and the moon setting to his left. A simple brown long coat hung from his shoulders while a lighter brown, wide brimmed hat adorned his head. The rising sun cast a long shadow of him down the hill. Shattered Glass noticed that even though the shadow had large, flowing wings, he did not. She did not think much of it.

Later in her life, Shattered was asked about one of her stained glass windows. It portrayed a mysterious man on a hill, a city in flames below him and the sun and moon in cycle to his right and left. His face shows him looking over his shoulder at the viewer. A sad, or was it happy, smile on his face.

She replied, "I don't rightly know why I made that. I had a dream of one of my earlier memories, where he showed up. He stood on a hill, after my father had protected us from rebels, and smiled at me."

When asked about the weirdly shaped, flat muzzle, she replied, "It looks more natural on him. I don't rightly know why I drew it.

Author's Note

please give any feedback that you think I need, pacing, details, setting, descriptions. I don't care. Just no flames, flames will be deleted with upmost prejudice. If this gets more view, I will put out chapters faster.