#ledefenseur

              “ Don’t do it, mate.” 

"Get up and try it again. Move your feet this time and quit focusing on what does not matter. If this was a real fight you'd be dead," Athos informed  d'Artagnan with an almost bored sigh. "Do not fight with emotion. Use your mind, I know you have one. Unless you've rattled it free with the number of times you've taken a blow to your head."     Stepping back now, Athos extended his blade toward his younger compatriot. "Now, do it like I showed you the first time."

   The man once so full of life seems more than merely      aged. It is as if his very soul is as brittle and dried as      his bones. The light that seemed to fill him is gone, a       mere flicker of it in his features. Silence reigns often in     his life ----- yet now his gaze is cast towards that of his      friend and companion, one he has loved as a brother.                  " I had thought she and I would die hand in hand,                   I promised her -- I promised her that I would not                    leave this world until I knew our children were kept                   safe. Yet -- yet it is almost too much to bear. To be                    without her. Forgive me D'artagnan, I am but an old                   man whose mind weakens and so I ramble. "