• Long ago, nearly three thousand years before you were born on to this land, in the realm of India when it’s title was old and guarded by the people of the grassland steppes, it’s cities built before the first stone placed, there once was o’ fair a maiden.
    Her beauty was undeniable; Her face radiant as the golden sun, the veil that enshrouded her was as such settled over the horizon. Her dance like the cascade of rain, blessed all who gazed apon her with envy and happiness.
    But she was of Vaishyas (A place within the Aryan caste system which held her as peasant) and many a man moaned of the cruelty that was inflicted onto their hearts, never to be with her. Even the highest of man would have sacrificed his wealth and power to claim such a beautiful flower as his own.
    Some would say, even from the highest point of the towering buildings, (made only this way to prevent drowning from the mightiest of floods), one could feel her warming smile. And indeed even within these flood buildings, one felt like he would drown in his own sorrow when she passed.
    But she was not with out her own love, she was to be married to that of the kind hearted traveler who had come far from the Himalayan Mountains of the east where she would run away with him, far from the Narmada River bank she once called home.
    They were to be wed secretly were none but they and the priest who would wed them could find. By the end, she wore the red powdered mark atop her forehead, showing her to be married.
    But with such a marriage, surly a happy ending was evident. This was not the case. A demon, within the form of a lion with a mane that burned like fire bounded out of thin air! It’s teeth grueling with poison.
    The young traveler was not without arms to strike the fierce creature. He grabbed from his travel worn bag a dagger of iron, worn from traveling the treacherous mountain,
    He lunged forward to face his enemy and to protect his beloved. Slashed and cut, jab and strike, nothing he did could harm the agile beast.
    Tried all he did, the man never got close to harming the demon. He motioned for another strike, raising the blade high but only to have it swatted away like a fly by the demon’s claw and fell feet away from him. It devoured him whole in one swift action.
    Filled with rage for having lost her husband, the maiden grasped the hilt of the dagger and concealed it beneath her cowl. Knowing that she was no warrior and that the beast held speed too difficult to match, she began to dance.
    The demon cat watched her as she glided on the grass become a red like mist, falling into a persuasive trance. She knew her beloved husband was still alive but she had to act now. Out came the dagger, it glinted in the light and in one stroke she cut the monster, it’s belly slit and wounded.
    The beast roared like a thundering monsoon, the maiden dropped the dagger in terror. The creature leaped and so too devoured the iron weapon, leaving the maiden without protection.
    She began to cry, her tears like diamonds as they fell from her cheek. She looked up at the demon and did what many would have called insane, she pleaded. She cried for it to spare not her but her husband. The demon merely grinned an evil smile but thought through the offer, one such as beautiful, even for a human it thought, would make an excellent toy. In a dark voice it accepted her offer but in return for what was believed the most precious of all things, her soul.
    She did not hesitate and in a black smoke her love returned, lying unconscious in the grass.
    The maiden however, had made a bargain and so she vanished with demon, leaving him to sleep until next he awoke.
    Apon the Himalayan Mountains they stood, the beast was ready to torment her for eternity but she had a plan. She once again danced and the demon returned to the familiar trance. Under her spell but still trapped as it’s play thing, she, now knowing the demon could be persuaded, asked it in a voice of like that of a cooing breeze, to simple trap her spirit in to the mountains instead, stating that the loneliness of the barren peaks would drive her into madness.
    Not realizing the trick, the demon did as she suggested and vanished.
    Even though left with nothing, the fair maiden danced all across the mountains in peacefulness.
    Men who would walk across the mountain range would sometimes believe they were being watched, that a red shadow could be seen in the heavy blizzards. Many began calling it the guardian of the mountain. They would give gifts of silver and gold coin (few being in the shape of sword hilts) as offerings of safe passage; wooden statues and even silk were sacrificed for her blessing as well.
    All these years, the maiden danced, the red mark on her head glowing like a scarlet star in the dark nights while she guided lost merchants and explorers through her land as the sought out the wondrous silk roads that brought trade and that lay beyond.
    She did not remorse for she had saved the one she knew and loved and never again did sorrow touch her face.
    Only centuries later in time a priest of the mighty god of destruction Shiva would free her from her cursed existence as a ghost. But that is another story.
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