A familiar musty smell filled my nose as soon as we dropped out of the rift, setting my heart beating at a slightly faster pace. Small tingles ran through my chest, faint remnants of my last memory of this place, but I ignored them.

I became much more preoccupied with the fact that we were falling.

I tried to open my wings, but a spark of pain reminded me once more that they were still broken and bound. A small, strangled squeak wormed its way out of my throat as branches began to whip past the edges of my vision, air beginning to roar in my ears. A quick glance downward announced that the ground was over twenty feet below me, sending a jolt of adrenaline through my veins.

Before I could really comprehend what was happening, though, I felt my velocity decreasing, and a soft, golden glow tainted my vision. In seconds, we lightly touched down on the forest floor.

“Sorry about that,” Hawkeye said softly, a golden glow surrounding his paws fading away. “Force of habit.”

“What?!” Tranquility gasped, her eyes wide.

“Reed, Jasmine, we need to set up wards,” he said curtly, completely ignoring her. “Help me.” He paused, looking towards us. “Cam, non-Wolves… do whatever, I don’t care.”

A small burst of indignation ran through me, but I didn’t say anything. Instead, as they walked to the edges of the clearing, I rolled my eyes and sat down, taking in our surroundings.

We’d emerged in a different spot of the forest than the one we were previously in. Here, the trees were denser, but the trunks were a little thinner than the other ones. The branches weren’t any shorter, though, and they wove together, forming a thick mesh of wood and leaves that replaced the sky above us. As a result, the amount of light that filtered through the canopy was drastically reduced, throwing the area into a sort of perpetual twilight.

That had some interesting effects of its own. The types of flora that were present were substantially different than the first location. There, flowers and other daytime plants were more common, making it look more like a rainforest. Here, strange fungi-like structures ruled the biosphere, with flowers being few and far between. It seemed that the fauna had changed too, as I swore I could hear crickets.

There were some things that hadn’t changed at all, the smell being one of them. I could also feel that the humidity was still overwhelming, almost like I was in a poorly constructed sauna. We had landed in another clearing, too. It seemed like Hawkeye had the foresight set us near another creek as well, as I could hear running water somewhere nearby.

Those things, combined with the adrenaline of our sudden drop, made me a little shaky. I sat down, my heart rate speeding up marginally. It felt like Ivy and the others were going to step out from behind a tree at any moment, and the chase was going to resume again. It didn’t feel… real that it might be over.

My heart grew heavy with that thought. Even though we were no longer being actively pursued, we’d still lost a battle. Ivy had gotten away with trying to kill us and made off like a bandit with exactly what she wanted. A small pang of guilt ran through me as it hit me that I had been a factor in that victory. She’d used my image as a means to get that crowd riled up and against Hawkeye. That… hurt. Badly. She’d tried to kill me, and still had the ability to get away with manipulating that for her purposes. I let out a soft sigh and shook my head, trying to rid my head of those thoughts, but it didn’t work.

And then the flashes started.

Golden bursts of light began to flicker through the clearing as Hawkeye, Jasmine, and Reed began to throw up the wards, and a faint golden barrier began to spread outwards, past the clearing and into the woods beyond. In a way, it was beautiful- a great show of coordination and teamwork, even in the wake of what we’d just been through, combined with a cool light show.

My heart didn’t see it that way.

As soon as the flashes began to flicker through the clearing, my fear shot through the roof, and my chest started to physically hurt. I felt like I should bolt, like I should run away as fast as I could and hide, and it took everything I had to keep myself in place. My breathing sped up to the point where I was hyperventilating. I started to become light-headed, and that only made my fear worse, and I started to panic-

And then a set of leathery wings wrapped around me, blocking my vision. “Close your eyes and try to breathe,” Tranquility whispered urgently, shifting her body so that I could press my face into her chest.

I did. As soon as I couldn’t see the flashes, I started to calm down, and my head started to clear. After about thirty seconds, I was back in working order.

I started to pull my head away, but she tightened her grip on me. “Don’t look up just yet,” she said. “They’re not done.”

“Okay,” I said shakily. On a whim, I extended my own forelegs and wrapped them around her. “Thank you… how did you know what to do?”

“I’ve been on the receiving end of what just happened to you so many times that it would be amazing if I didn’t know how to help someone who’s having a panic attack,” she said. “I should be thanking you. I just copied what you do.”

“That’s not right,” I protested weakly.

“No, it is,” she reasserted. We lapsed into a comfortable silence for a few more moments before I felt her shift. “I think they’re done.”

I lifted my head off of her chest and straightened up, but didn’t remove my hooves from around her. “What just happened to me?” I whispered.

“Something set you off into a panic attack, sort of like what happens with me and… fire,” she answered uncomfortably. “I think I know what, too.”

“Really?”

“Yep.” She smiled sadly. “It looks like I’m not the only one with trauma issues now.”

I felt a twinge of sorrow at that, and I leaned forward, giving her a reassuring nuzzle. Before I could say anything, though, a soft, golden glow became visible on her fur.

Turning around, I was greeted with the sight of Cam in full concentration mode, her tongue poking out between her lips. The vine-like magic patterns on her fur were glowing slightly, betraying exactly how hard she was working. As I watched, an ethereal glow surrounded her paw-toes, and she extended her arms out into a position that was like she was holding an invisible ball. The golden aura stretched towards the middle of the space between her paws, and as I watched, a glowing ball began to form, growing to be about the size of a grapefruit. Once it stopped increasing in size, it started to pulse erratically, and Cam’s eyebrows furrowed slightly. Suddenly, its glow dimmed and brightened in rapid succession, and she smiled, the fur patterns vanishing. “Perfect.” She stepped back, and the ball floated up into the air, its brightness increasing to the point where it bathed the entire clearing in a bright, sunlight-like glow.

Noticing Tranquility and I starting at her, she smiled sheepishly. “What?” she asked. “It was dark.”

“Amazing.”

I jumped slightly and whipped my head to the side. Jasmine, Reed, and Hawkeye had apparently been watching as Cam had been making the light, and Jasmine’s jaw had dropped open. “Have you ever cast that spell before?” she asked.

“No?” Cam responded, tilting her head to the side. “I’ve never needed to.”

“So you made that up right now?” Reed asked.

“Yes?”

“That’s incredible!” Jasmine gasped, turning to Hawkeye. “When I was her age, I was struggling to even learn basic spells, let alone make up my own!”

“Cam’s talented,” Reed said, smiling approvingly. “She’s able to that in the heat of battle, too.”

“Holy Void.”

“This is good,” Hawkeye said, a hint of satisfaction is gaze. “You’ve already mastered using your magic naturally. That makes training you much easier. You’re full of surprises, Cam”

“Sure,” Cam said, her gaze glazing over slightly. “Hawkeye… can I ask you some things? I’ve been wondering about some things, and you’re the only one who’d know about them…”

“Absolutely,” Hawkeye answered. “Let’s walk and talk. You can throw up some of those light balls around the area while we do.” She nodded cautiously and walked towards him, and the two of them made their way out of the clearing. I could hear a conversation begin as they walked out of earshot.

An uncomfortable silence dropped over the clearing, and I looked at Tranquility, not sure what to do. She shrugged, and I turned around, fumbling around for a conversation topic.

“So… Reed, what was up with that impromptu skydive earlier?” I asked awkwardly.

He let out a nervous laugh and walked over to me, sitting down. “It’s a tradition,” he said. “Whenever the Alpha jumps into a Wolf city, he’ll appear about thirty feet above the ground and levitate himself down. Sort of a ‘I come from the heavens!’ thing. It’s meant to inspire awe, and I’m sorry that you were thrown into it with no preparation.”

“It’s fine,” I said, a soft smile spreading across my face. “That’s kinda funny, actually.”

Another silence fell over the clearing. I felt Tranquility get up and walk over to Jasmine, and they started to talk quietly. I stared at them for a moment before turning back to Reed, a curiosity bubbling up in my mind.

“Reed, who’s Jasmine?”

A range of emotions flashed across his face, from shock to anger to just plain discomfort. He looked away from me and sighed. “That’s… complicated.”

“I’d like to know,” I said. “That is, if it’s not too much trouble. We’re going to be staying with her for a while, after all.”

“Oh, it’s not trouble at all, it’s just… how should I approach this?” he asked nervously, looking back towards me. “Well, to oversimplify this to an absurd degree, she’s my mate.”

It took a few seconds for me to register what he said.

“She’s WHAT?!” I gasped, my jaw dropping open. “Oh my goodness! That’s amazing! I don’t even know how you must feel right now! Wait, I can’t even imagine how you felt when she vanished, and to have her back-”

“Shh!” Reed placed a paw-pad over my mouth. “Calm down. It’s… not as great as you might think.”

I backed up slightly. “Why?” I asked, confused.

“I… I need to start at the beginning,” he said. “For as long as I’ve been alive, Jasmine was there. We were born half a year apart, and the crazy thing is, her parents weren’t Mages either! The odds of two Mages being born to non-Mages in that short of a timespan are… astronomical, to say the least. It was almost like a sign of something.

“Our parents certainly thought it was, and Hawkeye agreed that it might be beneficial to have us know each other, so we were raised with each other close by. And, lo and behold, our personalities fit together like two pieces in a puzzle. If you heard our parents talk, they’d say that we were made to be best friends.”

“That’s amazing!” I said, smile stretching across my face before quickly vanishing again, a new thought flitting into my mind. “Did… something happen?”

“No, not really,” Reed said, a small smile playing at his lips. “Our friendship was something straight out of a cheesy book for kids. We would always have so much fun when we played, and our disagreements were minor and inconsequential. It was perfect.

“And, when she was eight and I was nine, she wanted to try dating.

“Wolves go through two separate stages of maturing. Our romantic urges awaken when we’re around eight, which is when we start dating, and urges of a more… carnal nature awaken when we’re about seventeen or so- that one varies significantly depending on a variety of factors. When Jasmine hit the first milestone, she found that her feelings were directed towards me, and I could say the same for her, so we decided to try that out.

“Once again, it worked perfectly. We grew to be infatuated with each other. We’d train together, watch movies together, basically do everything together. We even started sleeping together, innocently, of course, and one of the clearest memories I have from those years is being dragged out of her room by my ear the first time her parents found out about that.” I let out a small snort of laughter, and he smiled a bit more widely before continuing.

“We decided to become mates when we were sixteen. That’s unheard of. Partners usually wait until their early twenties to take that step, but we knew we were ready. And, once more, that went off without a hitch.” I raised my eyebrow at that, and he sighed. “I said it was like a bad children’s book to begin with. Are you really surprised?

“Unfortunately, nothing really works out like that. One year later, Jasmine was officially initiated into the Mages.

“It wasn’t surprising that she got in before I did. She’s always been more gifted in the areas of magic and quick thinking than I was. The problem was that she wasn’t prepared for what that entailed.

“Jasmine was raised with a strong focus towards duty. You’ve seen that already. She’ll put her physical and mental wellbeing to the side if she’s asked to do something, and that’s part of what got her initiated so fast. Ivy loved it. She praised her for so faithfully carrying out the tasks she was assigned.

“The problem is that no one cared enough about how she felt about those duties. That had terrible, terrible consequences.

“I remember that she was sent to explore a moderately dangerous dimension that had recently been discovered for her first assignment. The problem with that is that she was inexperienced. That dimension had sapient life in it, and she stumbled right into a group of them. She…

“She did her duty.

“That was the first time I’d seen her cry. After she delivered her report to the Den, she came home and broke down completely. I was there for her, horrified at what had happened. Eventually, I helped her calm down, and we made peace with what happened together.

“I wish I could say that was the only time that happened. It was like that every few missions.

“It would either be something she saw or something she did, but it would do terrible things to her. It messed her up, and even though I tried my best to fix things, I couldn’t do it all the way. Eventually, I got initiated, and I started to experience the same things she did… but I never took it as hard as her. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s true.

“After about a year, she stopped being so distraught, and I thought she’d found a method to cope. I was wrong. She had determined it to be her duty to stop making me worry about her. I found a journal she’d been writing in, and it told me so much… I confronted her about it, and it was the first big spat we ever had… but we still came out of it stronger than before.

“And then Has’rou happened.

“I was heartbroken… I was so stricken with grief that I almost couldn’t function… and I had to do something… so I did the worst possible thing… I moved on. I tried to block out any memories from surfacing of her and… moved on.”

“But she’s back now!” I said excitedly. “Can’t you… pick up where you left off? Rekindle the flame?”

“I…” He trailed off, refusing to meet my eyes. “Did you notice anything about our childhood together? Our story together?”

“You two share an absolutely amazing bond, and when you’re together, you’re stunningly lucky?” I said, smiling.

“No,” he said, but then rolled his eyes. “Okay, yes, but at the same time, no. What I was going for was the fact that we grew and matured and virtually the same rate.

“It’s been six years, Fall. I’ve grown. I’ve changed. She’s been in a stasis of sorts. She’s the same Wolf she was those years ago, if a bit more scarred, and I’m… not. I don’t know what’s going to happen-”

“So you’re saying that she’s the same Wolf you were in love with and that’s a bad thing?” I asked, tilting my head in confusion.

“No!” He winced. “Well, yes, but it’s not that simple.”

“You’re wondering if she’ll still love you.”

He was silent for a few moments. “That’s the general idea, yes.”

“I think she will,” I said confidently. “And before you say anything to the contrary, here’s why.

“She still loves you. As you said, she’s basically the same Wolf she was six years ago, so she’s going to still be ‘infatuated’ with you. Besides, even if that weren’t the case, she’s been your best friend since basically you’ve been born! Just because you changed a little doesn’t mean she’s going to throw that all away!

“You’ve been together all your lives. This isn’t going to break you.”

He looked back at me, meeting my eyes. “You really think so?”

“Based on what you just told me, yeah,” I said confidently.

“But… how should I go about ‘rekindling’ this?” he asked quietly, his gaze drifting over towards the still talking Jasmine and Tranquility.

“Do what Tranquility and I have discovered works best when talking about problems,” I said. “Just talk about it.

“I know this isn’t going to come instantly. No one is born in love. It took me forever to gain feelings for Tranquility, and I’m still not exactly ‘in love’ with her. It’s been over a decade, just so that you’re aware. It’s not going to be easy, but that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be impossible.”

I offered him a smile, and he smiled back. “Thanks,” he said softly. “I think I’ll try that.”

We lapsed into silence again, but this time, it wasn’t an awkward one. For a few moments, we sat there, thinking to ourselves, before Reed suddenly straightened up.

“Someone’s coming,” he said, sending a burst of adrenaline through me.

We froze up, listening, and a second later, I began to hear the frantic crunching of leaves. Before I could truly comprehend that, though, a small figure raced into the clearing, barreling into me and knocking me over. I felt small arms wrap around my barrel, and before I could process that, I felt a hot liquid start to soak into my chest fur.

In an instant, I knew who it was. “Cam?!” I gasped. “What happened?! Are you oka-”

“T-they’re D-DEAD!” she wailed, more tears soaking into my coat. “My- d-d-dead!” With a keening wail, she broke down completely, sobs wracking her body.

It only took me a few seconds to realize who she was talking about.

A terrible sadness filled my heart. I quickly pulled myself into a sitting position and wrapped my forelegs around her, starting to rock myself softly. Tranquility quickly ran over to us and embraced us in her leathery wings, blocking out the outside world and letting Cam sob in peace

When I looked past Tranquility, I saw Hawkeye standing at the edge of the clearing, staring at us sadly. I shot a glare his way and went back to rocking Cam, trying to calm her down…

Even though I knew it was no use.

Tranquility let out a soft sigh, closing her eyes and nuzzling her. I felt something stir in my soul, something I hadn’t felt since the Crystal Mists.

Tranquility took a deep breath and began to sing.

“Konturo un parouh, our homes are long gone,
Tuareh un ceireh, we have to go on,
We have to move past this, to rise up and shine...

“Shei uros wau po kha dech du kesa krien."

Author's Note

SURPRISE! ANOTHER CHAPTER!

Are you shook? I’m shook. Mostly because I managed to actually write this whole in one day. I thought I’d get halfway through and burn out, but apparently not!

I feel good.

Anyways, this marks what I would consider to be the end of the first story arc. I don’t know how we got to this point, but let’s keep going!

And now we know who Jasmine is. Sorry for not addressing that sooner.

On a completely unrelated note, there’s a point where I have to wonder why I asked the legitimate question “Why does TripAdvisor have my fanfics?”

I’m not kidding. In the statistics, it says that the Australian TripAdvisor has referred someone to this fic. I have NO idea how this happened. I also know one of my other fics has had someone come over from the Mexican TripAdvisor, so this isn’t a one-time thing.

I’ve gotta ask, do you guys know why this happened? If anyone does, PLEASE tell me. I’m confused and very intruiged.

Thestral Language Guide

As usual, if I messed up grammatically or with punctuation, let me know and I’ll fix it. Also, can you tell me how you feel about this chapter in general? A lot of stuff went down and I want to know if I did it right.

Thanks for reading this chapter!

~Pyrepinna