"She called you a what?" Sierra gasped.

    "Dragonfly. I'm supposed to do something immensely important or whatever, but I'm pretty sure that was just all banter." I shrugged, swiping my claws down onto a tree that I was practicing on.

    "Loosen up your stance. Widen the gap between your hind legs and bend your knees. That's interesting because I've never heard of it before. I mean I'm no Scribe-claw but it seems to be the kind of information would be taught in early teachings." She walked around and corrected my stance.

    "I wasn't sure about that either. But I figured I'd ask Skylark or something." I shrugged, pausing as Sierra gazed off down the mountain and out onto the horizon.

    "I don't want you to think to hard this Zach, war is coming, and I have a feeling it's going to be a long one. You have a lot of things to worry about besides a destiny that someone else thrust upon you." She spoke, staring be down with her old purple eyes.

    "You think it will turn into war?" I asked worriedly.

    She took a deep breath. "If your father were here, he would tell you this, but I've fought in a few battles myself. You should never underestimate your enemies Zach, no matter how docile they seem, there's always a sharpened set of claw behind their back. War is what Tenebris wants."

    "But surely that can't apply to everyone." I frowned, that kind of thinking wouldn't get me out of a war.

"Not every time, but you have to be careful what you say to someone, it could possibly sway in the tide battle."

I concluded that day's training and was prancing through the snow towards the place we had set up temporary camp on our way down the mountain range. Only I didn't get that far before a large red ball of fur nearly took me out.

"We weren't spying on your fighting lesson I swear." Feurige claimed, and Jelu, Fulgura, and Ipa popped out of the snow.

"Riiiiiight." I nodded slowly.

    "Can you show me how you did that move?" Jelu asked, with stars in his eyes.

    "Come on, we'll walk and talk." I rolled my eyes at the rest of them.

    We managed to clear out a small tunnel and make it bigger with the help of Ipa the rock-mover and Feurige the snow-melter. Jelu tried to help but it was evident after a few seconds he would have to sit that out. Only now Feurige kept sitting down in piles up mud that spontaneously appeared at random moments. And we always had to conduct a morning search party to find Jelu in all the new snow that he accidentally created. 

Everybody's powers were kind of oozing out with no way to control them. It wasn't to much of a problem, but it had me worried. I thought Suka said we were ready, it didn't. seem like that now. And more and more I began to distrust the words of our patron. What I really wanted to do was form a battle strategy, were we going to wait until Tenebris attacked us, or do we have a formidable plan to attack her or him, or whatever gender it was going by now.

After prattling on to Jelu until he started to look for other things to do, he ran off after his brother to nag him about what ever and what not. I was looking for a Scribe-claw, and as usual, Lysander was nowhere to be found, probably gallivanting off somewhere with my teacher. But Skylark stuck out like a Scribe-claw with no bush. Which was for the most part pretty accurate.

    "There is no shrubbery anywhere." She frowned.

    "That's a real shame, but we'll be down the mountain real quick anyway. I was wondering since you know a lot of things, maybe you could tell me something off a certain topic?"

    She smiled. "Only for you."

    I felt my cheeks grow hot. "Uh, well, have you ever heard of an Ancient Claw named Dragonfly?"

    "Yes, well, actually... Oh my stars!" Skylark looked close to tears.

    "What?" I panicked, hoping I wasn't the cause of her suddenpanic.

    "I...I...I...don't know, anything about a Dragonfly." She squeaked.

"Well that's all right." I replied with haste. "You aren't expected to know everything, you don't need to, I mean I'm doing pretty well."

"You know all you set out to know. And I won't rest until I've learned more." She insisted. "Oh and Zach..."

"Yes?"

"You look really nice today, better than you have in a while." She nodded.

"Thanks?" I was getting that strange feeling inside my stomach again.

She sighed and walked towards a dying shrub to mope.

We started moving again after catching a few small animals for everyone to have a small gulp of food. It was enough to keep us going. Skylark remained downcast, sneaking glances at me for the reminder of the day which was something I was definitely aware of.

Kennon stuck with Annabeth and Ocaso. The two small kits had down a good job keeping up. But it wasn't long before the two hitched a ride of Feurige's large back. As soon as most of the heavy wind died down, we took to the air again.

It was long after that for us to touch down in our regular camping spot, just a ways south of the mountain range. Only it was night by then. Feurige went out on patrol with Sierra and Lysander. The younger were put to bed in their nest, and everything seemed peaceful.

    But I was aware of what my teacher was trying to tell me. This was the calm before the storm, we were on the brink of war. But the stars still shine in the sky above, and I knew my only twin gazed up at those same stars. We were so close, I could almost smell her.

In my head, I began formulating a battle strategy, so that we would be ready.

_______________

  He's right you know.

Everything is about to change.