______
Zara
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When I woke up, Zach was gone, but Jay was here so I was strangely okay with.

The sunlight shone brightly down on the clearing, my head hurt and one of my eyes was swollen shut. Jay was whispering quietly to me as he tended to my injuries. I had a leaf and poultice over the eye, I realized, it wasn't swollen.

"Is... what's going on?" I had been dimply aware of what was going on, and I didn't want it to be just a dream.

Jay's ears perked up happily at the sound of my voice. "It's okay, Tenebris is dead. We won Zara."

I blinked rapidly. "R-really?"

I don't know what I expected, it felt great but I guess... I guess I had expected Zach to be here for this moment. I had last time.

Beside me, Jelu shifted and woke up. Slowly at first, then he gasped and tired to sit up, Jay put a paw firmly down on his shoulder. Jelu groaned in annoyance.

"Jay! Oh Zara's here? What happened? Where's Tenebris?" He glanced around wildly.

"Dead. It's okay." Jay assured.

Jelu's eyes widened. "Dead? What happened?"

"I... I don't really know honestly. I think it had something to do with Xanthos?" Jay explained.

I looked around for him, I hadn't seen Xanthos in a while, I missed him. I spotted him kneeling in the clearing. I stood up shakily, found I could walk without pain, and made my way over to him. Behind me I could hear Jelu screeching in protest.

"Hey." I greeted.

Xanthos looked up, then smiled, he looked older. "Hey, I'm you're okay."

"Me too."

The was a short silence before he sighed.

"Did you know my dad was in there the whole time? He... he sacrificed himself for me. That's what happened."

My eyes widened. "That's... unexpected."

"That's love." He stared at the ground. "Three years later and I'm still learning from him, who would have imagined. You know I think that's what brought it down in the end."

"What?"

"Love."

I snorted, and Xanthos shot me a look. "Hey! I'm not kidding."

"That's such a cheesy way to go." I chuckled.

Xanthos still looked angry for a bit, then he laughed. We both laughed and it was a nice change. It was nice to be happy for once.

The rest of four were okay, they were just unconscious. Ipa seemed especially dazzled to be alive, Fulgura wasn't even fazed, and Feurige was just happy. Soon everyone was chatting and playing and it was nice to see the mix of tribes getting along.

I watched the tears that formed in Regulus's eyes as he got to see Avangeline again. Arroyo looked happy for once, Kennon allowed himself to smile. I noticed Skylark seemed to hang around with him a lot now.

Jamboree kept to herself, but she gazed at the horizon like she was talking to someone far away, and she smiled to herself.

My parents were furious. As soon as my dad spotted me he ran as fats as he could, and gave a firm lecture on everything dangerous I had down in the last seventy two hours. Then my mom stepped in and they nuzzled me happily.

Jelu and Jay continued to bicker as he set his younger brother's leg. I stalked back towards the two of them and touched my nose to Jay's. He effectively stopped talking out of surprise.

"Hey, love you." I said.

He grinned from ear to ear and his his face under his paws. "Aw shucks."

"Oh dang." Jelu smirked.

"Shut up."

I smiled at them and tilted my head, taking in this new sense of safety. It felt like honey, sweet and slow. I could get used to this. I leaned my head against Jay's shoulder and realized, maybe he was right. Maybe Zach had been right. Maybe I could be okay without him.

I'll try to be okay, for Zach.

________
Zach
_________

It had been a while since I had that weird dream with Zara in it. I don't think it was a dream, I think it was real. Only because I could go back to the place where I talked to her. It was a cave that had opened up in the dream, and when I had woken up, it was still there.

"This isn't something bad, is it?" Eliza asked, very nervous.

"No I promise. You guys are going to want to see this." I assured, tail high and proud as I led my three friends across the shallow pool of water and into the tunnel room.

"I've never explored over here." Ransom admitted.

"Me neither." Nala agreed.

"Nobody has except Zach, nobody's wanted to except him." Eliza roiled her eyes.

"Here it is!" I announced, sensing the walls begging to close in as the tunnel narrowed.

That's when I spotted it, the familiar sight from yesterday. It was a small white speck on the floor of the cave. This cave was very different then the other's because this one was a lot rougher than the others. I had already crashed into a lot of stalagmites finding it the first time. The ground was sharp and scuffed up your pads. The speck of light however, was obviously a crack in the floor as you got closer and closer.

It was bigger today.

Eliza's widened, all three of them look equally amazed as I showed off my discovery.

"That's never happened before." Nala blinked. "Like, never."

Eliza looked unsure. "Zach... I don't like this."

I glanced up at her distressed look and put a wing calmly on top of one of hers. "Hey it's okay. It's not dangerous, I don't think."

"You're right." A face loomed out of the darkness causing all of us to jump.

However, I grinned. "Barranca!"

Barranca glanced at me, and do something very uncharacteristic. She smiled.

"You're right Zach, in fact, it isn't dangerous at all." She placed one paw on the crack, and pushed down on it.

It strayed to grow. The other three looked slightly terrified as the cracks spread underneath their paws, but I trusted Barranca.

"Zach..." Eliza glanced up at me terrified.

"It's okay." I promised.

Then all of a sudden a huge fissure split through the earth, light flooded into the cave and I watched in fascination as the whole dissolved into runes and dissipated into thin air. Then we were falling. It wasn't just the three of us either, every single Rumblers was suddenly floating through the sky with us. We snapped out our wings and drifted calmly towards the ground. Eliza spotted me and dived down to where I was.

"What's going on?" She asked above the wind.

"I don't know!" I grinned wildly, which seemed to give her some solace. "I think this is something good though!"

I didn't want to get my hopes up, but the ground looked familiar.

Eliza smiled shakily. Then all of a sudden she gasped out in pain and clutched at her head. The action caused her to stall slightly and she disappeared into the throng of falling claws.

"Eliza!" I called after her, but I had lost her.

It was too late to look for her because then I had to concentrate on landing. I realized with a surge of glee that I did recognize this place!

This was my home.

The clearing below us was choked with claws of different tribes. They were all staring at the sky in amazement to witness the spectacle before them. However most of them dashed out of the way when it became apparent we needed to space to land.

My feet hit the ground and I couldn't help but laugh uncontrollably as I dug my claws into the sweet brown earth and rolled around with glee. The grass was green! Glamora I had missed the green grass and the blue sky and the smell of melting snow. The rumblers all touched down all around me and the other claws came rushing out it meet them. There was confusion but it was mostly joy as new faces met new faces. My heart started beating really fast as I recognized some Ice-claws. Living Ice-claws. This wasn't Glamora. That only meant one thing. I glanced around, looking for that familiar white and brown coat, when the crowd split for one second and I saw her.

Zara stared at me from across the clearing. She looked the same, a little more beat up and with a leaf poultice over her green eye, but that didn't matter. I cried out with joy and tore across the clearing towards her.

"Zach!" She screeched happily.

She tackled me and we rolled in the grass, just laughing but also crying. We were both crying big ugly tears of joy as she nuzzled my face.

"Zach!" I heard Jay's voice, then all of a sudden I was tackled again.

The big blue claw just about choked me as he practically sat on me. Then all of a sudden Jelu limped over to join the bear hug. My parents came crying over and only added to the ugly tears competition. I saw Arroyo and Kennon, the four, Skylark, Xanthos, my teacher Sierra, they were all there and they were all happy.

I was home.