The town was silent under the violet and orange dawn breaking over the stone buildings and cobble streets. All of Henry VII's Irish men and women were fast asleep in their beds.

Suddenly, coming into the town were the echoes of a close by person running through the streets from the River Shannon. This person ran alone, but the echo of other footsteps followed quickly. From around the corner, a beautiful redhead woman ran, carrying the long folds of her dim green dress, revealing her dirty black-brown peasant boots.

"Get her!" one of the men following her called "don't let her get away!"

She ran into the town centre, where the old well stood proud and true. She ran to the well's rock body and sucked in deep breaths, but the men did not stop and they soon had her and the well surrounded.

"She tires now, but do not let your guard down, we don't know all she is capable of!" one of the leaders of the mob called out, every man tensed his hand around his sheathed sword, awaiting her to make her move.

She rose again, straightening her posture. With her back straight and expression serious, she held the hem of her dress above her ankles and began…to dance.

She lifted her legs and bent her knees in the traditional style of the Irish River Dance. With no music, she looked slightly crazy, but soon the chink of metal could be heard in a far corner of the town square as one man tried to resist dancing as well. Then another joined as the first succumbed and then another and another, the dance had a huge chain reaction until the entire mini-army of men were dancing in perfect sync with one another. She kept dancing, watching as the men's faces showed confusion, fluster and occasional bemusement.

"What is the meaning of this?" a man shouted from just outside the square.

A large man mounted upon a horse rode in, but could not traverse the men who did not cease to dance. The man looked out to the clear area of the well and saw the redhead, her dress still crumpled in her hands and her legs still moving in perfect movements. Her face however, was not as amused as it was when the other men were dancing.

"Danu?" he hollered over the masses "what're you doing here?"

"Dancing father," she called back "I'm dancing with all your friends."

He hesitated for a moment before speaking again.

"You," he hesitated again "where's the witch they're after?"

He sounded like he didn't want to ask, nor did he really desire the answer, but it was clear.

"Father…" she said quietly, but grew louder "I am the Witch."

He stopped moving as he absorbed the news, but he was a man with orders. Find the Witch and bring her to be burnt.

He dismounted his horse and began to weave through all the dancing men, evading every kick and spin that his daughter was making them do. He moved with power and flow and he did not stop until he had passed through the first row of men. He stepped into the empty space that separated his dancing daughter from everyone else.

"Danu…" he said, "stop this. If you surrender this- this witchcraft, I might be able to save you. The Priest can heal you and save you from this- thing."

Danu looked at her father, closed her eyes and slowly shook her head. She looked back with a sad smile.

"I've been to church twice a week since I was born, I've spoken to the Priest more than I can count and I've been a good and loyal person since I knew my own name," she explained "in addition, I don't want to be healed for I suffer no ailment. I've lived a Christian life, but I am a woman of Wicca. You may burn me, I shall not resist it. But only, if you can catch me."

"You…" he lowered his head, but when he rose his eyes were angry "you are no daughter of mine! You are no longer Danu of the O'kane family. You are Danu of no family! And you are a witch. A sin against God! An agent of Satan! For that you shall burn in the fire he formed you from!"

Danu again smiled sadly, but lifted her chin with pride.

"I'm not Danu O'kane, if you truly wish that upon me, but I have family. Sisters. And I am not of Satan's flame." She said with the utmost pride in herself "but I am sorry. For what I must do now."

With her legs still moving, as though they did not tire or even move in any different motion, she raised her arms and turned her head towards the well. She moved as though to scoop up something that could not be seen, when she raised her arms, the water rose out of the well in a large body. Danu looked at her father once again with the same sad smile as before. She moved her arms again and the water followed and morphed into a circular wall around her and the well, with 360° protection.

Danu stopped dancing and the men all fell to the ground through exhaustion. Danu stood still for a moment and then moved her right hand to her temple and, with the other, opened her palm and the water rippled. The ripples moved out from a single point directly in front of Danu's hand and the wall fell, but when the wall fell, Danu's father suddenly looked confused. He looked left to right, but found nothing. He moved back towards his horse with a sense of urgency in his manner.

"Everyone to your feet!" he hollered out, motivating many to rise back to standing "the witch has escaped! Find her, but be careful, she moves the waters! Capture her and kill her immediately!"

Another man stopped him, he seemed older and weaker, but he still fought.

"Michael. Don't think I didn't recognise her," he said with extreme concern in his eyes and voice "Danu is…"

"The witch," he said coldly "I am here to protect my wife, daughter and son. For that, the witch must burn."

The older man withdrew and moved to help another man. Michael mounted his horse and rode back around the roads he came from to find Danu.

But Danu had not moved.

She kept her hands where they were until every man had dispersed again, at which point she dropped to her knees and once again breathed in deeply as the shock and exhaustion. Tears began to pour down her face in rivulets of crystal sorrow. She calmed herself down and took a piece of paper from her bosom and began to read aloud.

I am the Mind.

The power you hear, but cannot find.

I bide my mind into the light,

For none can conquer the Ocean's might.

My body broken, my soul lost,

My mind free, if that the cost.

I lock my heart and thus my hour,

For the mind is what can truly flower.

I pass my power unto another

And so protect said child's mother,

With love, with hate,

Through friends and mate.

My spatial plane I cannot bide,

So pass and wait the power of Tide!

To the forever flow, I surrender all that I bound

Until the time and place for me is found.

By the words of the Sisters, the promised days,

I grant the power of my Wiccan Ways!

A light burst forth from every orifice and her body fell limp to the ground, but the water had frozen where it lay.

On the well wall, scarred into the very body of the well that had been so significant to Danu's final moments, was a tiny white symbol as tribute to the Sister's promise.