Aurin awoke to light streaming in through cracks in the shed and the soft sound of hay being thrown about as his new pet eagerly hopped and scurried about. He breathed out a sigh of annoyance and looked down at his chest, confused as to where the pile of feathers that neatly sat there in a heap came from. He sat up, dusted away the feathers, and said, "Well, M'lady, are you excited for the coming apocalypse?"

His "dragon" licked her lips and shook her head, her frill sending a gust of air and straw and feathers towards his face. She then sat down and pushed her dark mottled green and brown face into his, giving him an unintentional shove backwards. Suddenly, Aurin heard a loud door slam and his father yelled for him, in the tone of voice that clearly meant someone was in trouble. His pet circled him like a cat before pouncing into his lap, her paws wet and sticky. The door to the shed burst open, and his father yelled "Aurin! Where are all th' chickens?"

"I don't know, Da! What would make you think I'd run off with a bunch of silly chickens?" Aurin replied defensively, before continuing, "Ack! Dragon! Your paws are all wet and sticky and...red...uh...hmmm."

At that, she let out a triumphant victory snarl, while Aurin gave his father an apologetic glance.

"I'm sorry, Da! She's just an animal! She didn't mean..." Aurin began, as the dragon spoke into his thoughts, "You said chickens were not family. You said we eat not family." with a very self satisfied purr.

"At least we won't have to worry about killing the chickens ourselves?" Aurin squeaked, his father's eyes blazing with anger.

"Make sure it doesn't happen again, or so help me we are selling that creature's hide!" his father growled.

"Come and take it!" was the creature's indignant response, and Aurin was glad that only he could hear her. After the bout with his father, Aurin decided to take a walk to the creek, hoping to clear his head. His creature eagerly followed behind.

"Well, M'lady, it seems like we'll all be dead in a few weeks, so we may as well enjoy the life we've got, unless somebody has other plans. I've trained with weapons, but I'm not enough. And nobody is gonna' miss us when we're gone." Aurin said, as they reached the water's edge. A large bullfrog croaked loudly at their arrival, oblivious to the bleak future ahead. Suddenly the creature dove in a big splash, coming up out of the shallow water with a bloody frog leg sticking out of her mouth. She crossed her eyes and watched as the leg twitched, before gulping it down and licking her chops.

"That's not ladylike, and you're making a mess." Aurin scolded her, after the fifth frog she had gruesomely caught and devoured. She growled and shot him a look before going after another frog. She was full by then, but that didn't stop her from playing with the frog as she tore it to pieces with her claws.

"Aren't you going to eat that?" Aurin asked, as she scanned the creek for more frogs.

"Why? I'm not hungry." She shot back into his thoughts.

"Then why kill it, if there isn't a purpose? Life is a precious thing, and we're each given only one. It isn't right to snuff it out for your own amusement." Aurin said.

"What is death?" She asked, tilting her head and looking into his eyes.

"Well...Death is when we stop living, and...go on from this life into the sky, I guess. But it means that we're gone forever, lost to the stars. And we can never be brought back again." Aurin replied to her question.

She looked down at the mutilated frog corpse and said, "All gone? No more frog?"

"No more frog." Aurin replied solemnly.

She scrunched up her brow and said, "Take it back from the sky."

"I can't. Once it's gone, it's gone. No more frog forever." Aurin replied.

"Chickens, then? Bring back the chickens!" She said eagerly.

"I can't. Death works for all of us, M'lady. No more chickens, no more frogs, no more Mother." Aurin said.

"Are you my mother?" The creature asked, having taken the idea of the concept of mother from his head.

"No. A mother is a female. Always. A mother brings you into the world." Aurin said.

"Who brings a mother into the world?" the creature asked, batting at the limp frog's corpse.

"Her mother does. I think that every mother born has a mother of her own." Aurin replied.

"Do frogs have mothers?" She asked.

"We all have to come from somewhere, so yeah, of course they do." Aurin said. She stared at the frog's corpse for a long while before saying, "Are all frogs the same?"

"No. Each frog has a soul, something that makes up the essence of that particular frog. When a frog or any of us dies, the soul goes away but the body stays." Aurin told her.

"Why do you think we are going to die? Where will we go? Will we go to the sky like other souls?" She questioned.

Aurin sighed and said, "A great evil dragon has gathered an army and is headed this way, and nothing has stopped them yet. They are too powerful, killing everything in their way."

"Why can't we get out of their way?" she replied angrily.

"They kill for the fun of it, to make others around them afraid. There is no getting out of their way because no matter where we go they will find us. No one is safe, and from what I've heard, the Empress is gone so nobody will gather an army to stop the evil clawing at our doorstep. It isn't fair." Aurin replied, wiping a tear from his eye.

"How would the Empress have stopped them?" His creature asked.

"A storm. A mighty storm of justice and power, a blazing tempest to smite Lyrica and all her forces to dust!" Aurin said, standing up and shaking his fist in the air. The creature knew he wanted to stop them, she could feel it echoing throughout his being. She sat up tall and said, "Then I will be Tempest, and they will fall. Death will fall on them, but we will live."

"You see my delusions, don't you, my friend. But victory is merely a dream." Aurin told her.

"Dreams come true." She said eagerly, watching a shoal of fish shimmering as they swam through the clear stream.

"The waters will run red with blood if we stand to fight. There is always a cost, in every story of knights and dragons, there has to be a price payed for peace. M'lady, are you sure about this dream?" Aurin asked.

"I am Tempest now, and this is no longer a dream." She said, raising her head high.

"Well, if anything, I think we've found your name. But finding hope will be much harder." Aurin replied sadly.

"Then we will search in every corner and under every rock, in every hole, beyond every sky, and when we find hope we will pounce and slice its jugular and make it be ours. Hope is prey, and prey is always caught in the end." Tempest said triumphantly.

"Tempest, it doesn't work that way." Aurin said, as she shot him a chilling glare.

"It does now. We will find hope, and we will live on. In the nest Mother told me prey will always find its way to your stomach if you hunt harder than the rest. We will hunt the hardest." Tempest said.

"You can't kill everything that gets in your way or that bothers you or happens to be there." Aurin said with a sigh as Tempest hooked a fish in her claws and pulled it ashore.

"Why not? The soul goes somewhere." Tempest replied indignantly, watching the fish wriggle helplessly under her claws.

"It's wrong to kill." Aurin said in exasperation.

"Then why did your father kill the cow? Why do you kill prey? I kill because I like to see the light flicker and fly away." Tempest said.

"Sometimes you have to kill lesser creatures to eat. And sometimes enemies will try to kill you, and if the cause is just then it is okay to kill, but it isn't right to kill for fun. Each creature you kill is another life ended, and it is a waste to kill something if it wasn't trying to kill you or if you aren't going to eat it." Aurin explained.

Tempest thought for a moment, before scarfing down the frog's corpse and the fish under her claws, saying, "Now the kill is alright. I ate it."

Aurin clenched his jaw but he didn't reply. Tempest looked at him questioningly and said, "Do you want to share the kill?"

"I'm fine. I can feed myself." Aurin quickly replied. Tempest placed her head on his shoulder and said, "I don't want to die. Where can we find hope so we can hunt it?"

"Hope is not a prey animal, but it is a feeling found within. Hope makes the darkness and despair a little brighter and brings a possibility of a future." Aurin replied, stroking her jaw. She closed her eyes and hummed, before saying, "Where inside? I can cut it out!"

"Hope isn't a physical thing, Tempest. It is a feeling, something you just know. And I think you just helped me find my hope. You renewed in me the spark of ambition, and now I know we can't sit back and let Lyrica kill everyone. We need a plan, a way to get everybody to work together because we are stronger in numbers." Aurin said.

"We can scare them into helping. Prey will do almost anything when it's scared." Tempest said.

"They are already scared. And they've lost their hope. We can't scare them more than they already are." Aurin replied softly.

Xolt burst into the palace garden, a storm cloud hanging heavily over his head. He was furious, his fists crackling with lightning and his tails bristled with anger. "Mieraux!" he yelled, stomping his foot down. He spotted her sitting on the edge of a fountain, almost as if she was waiting for him.

"Is everything alright?" She said, looking up at him and batting her eyes innocently.

"You have some explaining to do!" Xolt growled, and she tilted her head and put her hand to her heart, slightly offended, and she said, "How about you come sit down next to me and then I'll explain."

Xolt sighed and said, "I don't want to believe you're the villain here, but it is getting hard to just look the other way."

"Then don't." She said, gazing into his eyes and beaconing him to come closer.

He sat down next to her and looked at the ground, saying, "How am I supposed to know you're innocent? The facts just aren't adding up, and I'm worried that one of us is a traitor, and the others are all thinking it's you."

"What if I were to give you evidence proving my innocence?" Mieraux asked, grabbing onto his shirt and pulling him in until their noses were almost touching.

"Wha?!" Xolt exclaimed, before she pulled him even closer and planted her lips on his, the kiss lasting for almost ten seconds, before she gently pulled back and said, "How is that for evidence?"

Xolt sat there, speechless and dazed. Mieraux chuckled and then fell backwards into the fountain, pulling him in with her. Xolt hacked and sputtered for breath, while Mieraux calmly grabbed his muzzle in her hands, looked him in the eyes, and said, "Whoopsie me! I can be quite clumsy sometimes!"

Xolt glared, still splashing in a wild panic, when Mieraux said, "Silly, it's only two feet of water! You're not drowning!"

Xolt stopped panicking and glared, and she said, "Now why the grumpy face? I was just playing." before giving him a soft peck on the cheek.

"What, still mad?" She asked, as he climbed sopping wet out of the fountain and crossed his arms.

"I hate water." Xolt snarled, as she draped her arms around his shoulders and nuzzled his neck.

"Oh, yes, lightning. Right. If you used your powers in water you'd electrocute yourself, now wouldn't you?" Mieraux said, climbing out of the fountain and sitting next to him. Xolt wrapped his arms around her and said, "Mieraux, I love you. But I don't want to have to fight you. I'd rather we be on the same side."

"We can be on the same side." Mieraux said, kissing him on the nose.

"That depends. Which side are you really on?" Xolt said.

"Silly birdy. Didn't you already know?" Mieraux said with a mischievous grin, laying her head on his chest and using her weight to dip his head and shoulders into the fountain and looking into his amethyst eyes.

"Didn't I know what?" Xolt said nervously, trying to pull himself up.

"Your suspicions were right all along!" Mieraux cackled, pushing him fully into the fountain again and pulling out a dagger of light.

"No! Mieraux, you can change your mind! You can come to our side! Break free of Lyrica's bondage and help us defeat her!" Xolt pleaded

"You don't understand. I'm not under any sort of bondage. Nobody controls me. I do as I please!" She said, raising her dagger to strike.

"Please! I want you to be good! I love you!" Xolt gasped.

"Do you have to be so pitiful? I gave you a chance to serve at my side, and you chose otherwise. Did you think for a moment that I loved you? Please, I can hardly keep up this goody-goody charade any longer. It's making me sick!" Mieraux said, suddenly thrusting the dagger into his shoulder and collapsing into his arms. It took him a couple moments to realize that somehow she was unconscious.

Xolt groaned in pain and tried to lift himself up, but putting weight on his freshly wounded shoulder was too much for him to bear. He heard footsteps echo across the cobblestone path as Miraj rushed out to him and looked at him with shock and disappointment.

"This isn't what it looks like, sis." Xolt coughed out, using his non injured arm to push Mieraux's limp frame off of himself.

Miraj crossed her arms before running closer, saying, "Ohmygosh, Xolt! You're bleeding!"

"I've had worse." Xolt shrugged, gathering Mieraux up with his good arm.

"I knew she was trouble from the beginning, and you never listened to me." Miraj huffed.

Xolt tilted his head and asked, "I don't know what got into her. And then she just fainted as she was trying to stab me."

"Oh, really? Have you ever come to think that some people happen to be looking out for you? She could've killed you." Miraj said, putting her hands on her hips.

"Yeah right. I solve all my problems on my own." Xolt shot back.

"Dream on. I've been keeping an eye out on Mieraux and you, and I used Ivy's recruited help to my advantage. The Kapybara agreed to help out if there was trouble, and we've been following you for awhile now. If I wasn't here to keep lookout and get help, then you wouldn't be here to brag. Now drag her sorry carcass to the infirmary so we can prevent her from causing any more trouble." Miraj replied.

"She's not dead, is she?" Xolt said in a sudden rage.

"Did anyone teach you to check for a pulse? She's fine, just sleeping like a baby. The Kapybara said the effect lasts for only a few hours so we better get a move on before sleeping beauty wakes up." Miraj said, escorting him inside.

"She said she didn't love me." Xolt said, a bit downtrodden.

"Get over it. There's plenty of fish in the sea, Xolt." Miraj said coldly.

"Glaedyn, look! There's a farm up ahead! We can rest for the night and send a message of inquiry to the palace." The cloaked figure said. Glaedyn put a paw over her face and replied, "With what's been coming our way, that farm is bound to be destroyed. And it's probably your brother, Clout."

He took his hood off and revealed his dark blue panther like face and said, "Well, then, our mission is a success!"

"I doubt that." Glaedyn replied, embarrassed by his optimism.

"Well, we won't know until we know. Now let's find a carrier pigeon, send out our message, and get a good night's sleep. A little hope never hurt anyone." Clout said, scribbling a note on a blank scroll and then sealing it with a dab of rare blue wax that he had concocted himself.

"Well slay me now." Glaedyn mumbled, curling up and tucking her head under her wing. Clout sighed and chased down a bird before setting it free after a bit of a scuffle with a scroll tied to its leg.

He then watched the bird fly off into the sunset and said with a hint of self satisfaction, "Wherever you are, brother, I will find you."

"Are you still upset about yesterday?" Xolt asked, as Miraj bandaged his wounded shoulder. In response, she tightened the bandage, sending another wave of pain rippling through his body.

"Ow! Does it have to be so tight?" Xolt groaned.

"You brought this on yourself." Miraj sighed as Kaeoryn walked in the door, carrying a silver neckband inlaid with an onyx.

"Is THAT really necessary?" Xolt exclaimed, knowing that the neckband was specifically designed to inhibit a silver helix's abilities.

"It's either that or we kill her, and I doubt the new Empress would approve of that option." Kaeoryn said grimly, holding the collar as if it was a venomous snake. He then quickly clamped the collar around the sleeping Mieraux's neck and it sealed itself so that she couldn't take it off.

"Where are we going to lock her up?" Kaeoryn asked, looking down at Mieraux with disgust.

"We can't keep her around where she can hear our plans now that we know she's the traitor. The only place secure enough is the dungeon." Miraj replied.

"The dungeon? But why?" Xolt yelped in alarm.

"She tried to kill you, she killed a bunch of wyverns, and..." Miraj started, when there was a loud noise in the hall, followed by a loud scream.

"And look who finally showed up." Xolt growled sarcastically as Thorryn crashed into the infirmary, his mouth full of scrolls, with Ravenna in tow.

"Now there's something that deserves to be kept in the dungeon!" Xolt said, as Ravenna cornered her dragon and tackled him.

"You've...got...mail!" Ravenna gasped, pulling the scrolls out of Thorryn's mouth. Thorryn released the scrolls, sending her flying backwards, while waving his tail excitedly with his tongue lolling out like a very smug little dog. Miraj went through the scrolls, before suddenly a scroll with a blue wax seal teleported in a wisp of black shadows.

"Hey! What's the big deal?" Miraj asked, before Kaeoryn stormed out of the room.

"Huh. I never knew mail could be so exciting. I wonder whose birthday party he got invited to." Ravenna said as Thorryn sat up on his hind legs and tried to sneak a scroll off the table they were on. Xolt shot a spark of lightning at the little dragon, and Thorryn cowered away with a little whimper.